The establishment of a framework for Japanese language education and language proficiency assessment in high schools has become an issue in recent years. The authors have been engaged in the implementation of comprehensive language instruction for students who require Japanese language instruction in high school. In this paper, we report on our efforts to establish a new curriculum for language education at an Osaka prefectural high school that accepts students who require Japanese language instruction.

　This study used discourse analysis to assess how responses of agreement with compliments are expressed and the conversational processes involved in the context of conversations between Japanese and Chinese individuals during initial meetings and among friends. Responses of the agreement to compliments were prevalent in both types of conversations, and no significant differences based on language-cultural factors or level of familiarity were observed in the proportions between isolated agreement and combinations of agreement with other elements. Looking at the characteristics of the conversation development leading to agreement responses, both Japanese and Chinese conversations in initial meetings predominantly involved cases where the preceding context included the recipient's positive self-evaluation. However, in conversations among friends, Japanese conversations exhibited a higher occurrence of cases in which the preceding context included the recipient's positive self-evaluation, while in Chinese conversations there was a higher occurrence of cases in which the recipient straightforwardly accepted the compliment.

　The purpose of this paper is to verify the construct validity of the reading section of the Dialogic Language Assessment (DLA Reading) by assessing the difficulty of the DLA Reading and alternative texts, and to investigate the feasibility of using available grade-level supplementary Japanese language textbooks as alternative texts.

　In the initial phase, a readability analysis was conducted on 19 texts. Subsequently, 213 native Japanese-speaking children participated in the study, providing reading comprehension and fluency scores for grade-level texts. The order of text difficulty was examined by analyzing the rating scores in the vertical scaling.

　Results showed that three texts had low values in terms of text factors, but reasonable values were obtained for the remaining 16 texts after excluding the influence of some specific character types. Individual factor analysis confirmed that the other 16 texts were at an appropriate grade level. While two texts deviated from the expected order and displayed lower values, overall, the hypothesis was supported. Furthermore, it was observed that fluency in oral reading in lower grades influenced the difficulty criteria.

　Learners of Japanese in Finland find themselves in an isolated environment offering limited opportunities for contact with the Japanese language. This study was conducted when Japanese language education was being further scaled down in Finland. This resulted in even fewer classroom learning opportunities for intermediate-to-advanced learners, creating a severely isolated learning environment. For this study we conducted a questionnaire survey on motivation and learning difficulties among Japanese language learners in Finland. From the results of a factor analysis of 174 responses, we identified seven factors for motivation (cross-cultural understanding, practicality for the future, interest in Japanese itself, interest in foreign language acquisition, self-improvement, interest in pop culture, interest in high culture) and five factors for learning difficulties (difficulty in progress, low frequency of contact, difficulty in learning kanji, adverse learning environment, lack of Japanese language proficiency). Furthermore, differences in motivation and learning difficulties were confirmed based on the difference in proficiency levels in Japanese, such as beginner and intermediate-to-advanced learners. Based on these results we propose a way to support learners in isolated environments, by providing opportunities to connect with Japanese people and other learners.

　This paper investigates the characteristics of topic shift in a first conversation between two female native speakers of Japanese. The method involved labeling each topic shift using a multidimensional array of six indicators: relevance of content; process of ending the preceding topic; trigger for introducing the following topic; topic area; action function of topic introduction utterance; and attitude toward the conversation partner. The relationship between relevance of content and the other items was examined as the main explanatory variable. The results showed that, in relation to the process of ending the preceding topic, there were many “sudden shift” cases in which the process of termination of the preceding topic did not take place in topic shifts where the relevance of the content was “development”, and few “cooperative shift (sufficient)” cases in which the termination process was carried out sufficiently. On the other hand, “cooperative shift (sufficient)” was found to be a common indicator in topic shifts where the relevance of the content was “new” or “reappearance”. A connection was also shown between the relevance of content indicator on the one hand, with the indicators of trigger for introducing the following topic and attitude toward the conversation partner.

　This study analyzes Japanese business e-mails, written by 16 native Japanese speakers and 18 non-native Japanese speakers working in Japan, to request rescheduling of a meeting. It clarifies the differences in their considerate language behavior in terms of structure and content. The study was conducted through a web survey and online semi-structured interviews. The structure and content of Japanese business e-mails were analyzed using the method of Muraoka et al (2005). The results showed that while there were similarities in the placement of the apology component in the discourse, there were differences in the placement of the reason for contact component and the use of the gratitude component. In terms of content-related considerate language behavior, similar selection trends were observed for some of the contents related to the apology and request components, but some content was mentioned only by native Japanese speakers or non-native speakers. The results of the above analysis provides some pedagogical suggestions to be applied to business Japanese language education.

　The purpose of this study is to develop a Japanese-Chinese bilingual Japanese vocabulary size test to measure receptive auditory lexical knowledge, and to provide preliminary validation evidence while elucidating the characteristics of auditory vocabulary knowledge. The test was administered to 118 Chinese learners of Japanese with a wide range of proficiency levels. Results of a Rasch analysis showed that the test scores are reliable in terms of internal consistency, are representative in terms of item difficulty, and are acceptable in terms of the fit to the Rasch model. A weak correlation was found between word frequency and item difficulty. Furthermore, through a comparison with previous studies that examined the visual vocabulary size of Chinese native speakers, the study revealed: a) a progressively stronger correlation between auditory vocabulary knowledge and visual vocabulary knowledge for wago (Japanese-origin words), kango (Sino-Japanese words) and gairaigo (alphabetic loanwords); b) for kango, auditory recognition was more difficult than visual recognition, while auditory recognition was easier with wago and gairaigo; and c) there was no significant difference in average item difficulty between wago, kango and gairaigo in the case of auditory recognition. These findings suggest the importance of learning focusing on auditory vocabulary.

　This study aims to identify the structure of the support system for foreign residents in city X, a depopulated region where foreign residents live in dispersed areas, and to examine the role of community-based Japanese language education. We carried out fieldwork and analyzed the data using the local governance framework. The result showed that support activities for Japanese language learning in depopulated areas have been functioning autonomously within the local governance system, and are not necessarily consistent with the current national policy for community-based Japanese language education. For the Japanese language education of immigrants, Japanese language learning support by the residents and the national system of Japanese language education must go hand in hand. The role of community-based Japanese language learning support is to integrate foreign residents into the local community through its diverse support activities including language support, in which various local personnel work together. It connects foreign residents to diverse resources inside and outside the community. Through those supportive activities, foreign residents will be taken into the communities. social network, and gain motivation for Japanese language learning that will support the formation of their life careers within this relationship.

　Interview surveys were conducted in this study with intermediate to advanced Japanese language learners, whose native tongue was German, regarding how they interpret meanings of Japanese kanji compound words in meaning inference tasks for Japanese two-kanji compounds. The results show that the learners paid attention not only to the meanings of each individual kanji in the compounds, but also to their position (left or right) in the compound word, and that they prioritized the one placed on the right, considering it was the one that determined the compound.s primary meaning. Such knowledge was never explicitly imparted to them, but rather inferred by themselves in the course of learning kanji. Here it is also demonstrated that such knowledge can mislead learners and prevent them from correctly inferring the actual meaning. Based on the above results, appropriate support for intermediate and advanced-level kanji learners is discussed.

　This paper is a report on the Japanese language teacher training program for children who need Japanese language education, which was conducted by the Japanese language education course at the authors' university. The program was carried out at public elementary and junior high schools in Higashiosaka city for about one day a week, totaling 5 days, between September and October 2022. The trainees were four students enrolled in a Japanese language education course. A supplementary Japanese language teacher was in charge of teaching them. Since this teacher goes to teach at several different schools, the trainees went along to visit and observe classes, and they had a teaching practice on the last day. In this program, the goal was for the trainees to understand the actual situation of Japanese language education and to make use of what they learned at the university. According to the analysis of the reports they made, it was revealed that the trainees understood what items the students needed to study further, and that they used what they understood for planning a practice lesson. The result shows that the goals of this program were generally achieved.