Visual Recognition of Japanese Kanji-Words of Korean Students Learning Japanese in Korea : The effect of orthographic and phonological similarities between Korean and Japanese

The purpose of this study is to investigate visual recognition of Japanese kanji-word processing on advanced-level Korean students learning Japanese. The orthographic and phonological similarities between Korean and Japanese language were treated as independent variables, while the reaction times from the visual lexical decision task were assigned as the dependent variables. From analysis, facilitation effect of phonological similarities and orthographical similarities was observed. Partly different from the result of a study by Cai, Fei, & Matsumi (2011) whose participants were advanced-level Chinese students, advanced-level Korean students in Korea have immediate processing access to concept by activating Korean phonological representation

Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature in the Field of Japanese Language Education : Daisuke Nishihara’s “Sekai no naka no kin, gendai nihon bungaku”

日本語教育分野において，日本文学はどのように取り入れられるべきか。また，教師はどのように日本文学を教授すべきだろうか。これらの問題に対して，本研究では，西原大輔氏が執筆した「世界の中の近・現代日本文学」の論文の構成と構造を分析し，関連分野の基礎的理論の読解と専門学者とのインタビューを通して論文作成経緯を導きだし，日本語教育分野での日本文学のあり方について検討した。 西原(2006b)は，海外における日本文学研究の歴史をたどりながら，影響を与えて来た人物と作品について紹介し，文学という概念がどのようにして導入されたのか，また西洋文学からの影響について整理している。そして，日本文学の読解が日本語教育の到達点とすることを提案している。西原(2006b)は，比較文学の3つの立場により作成されている。すなわち，(1)西洋中心主義的な考えに批判すること，(2)国粋主義を批判すること，(3)左翼的な世界観を批判することの3点である。これらの比較文学の観点から日本語教育を再考し，日本語教育における文学の学びの過程を提案した。文学を国際的な視野で捉え直すこと，文学を文化と結びつけ学習者自身の解釈によって，より深い異文化理解を得る機会とすること，また文学作品に使用される教養のある日本語を身につけること，である。How should Japanese literature be incorporated into the field of Japanese language education? Furthermore, how should teachers teach Japanese literature? To answer these questions, this study considers the role Japanese literature should play in the field of Japanese language education, analyzing the composition and structure of Daisuke Nishihara’s “Sekai no naka no kin gendai nihon bungaku” (Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature in the World). Through a reading of basic theories in related fields and interviews with specialists, the details are derived regarding this article’s creation, by which the ideal state of Japanese literature in the field of Japanese language education was considered. While tracing the history of Japanese literature research overseas, Nishihara (2006b) introduces influential figures and works, clarifying how the concept of literature was introduced to Japan and the influence of Western literature as well as proposing the use of Japanese literature comprehension as an assessment point in Japanese language education. Nishihara (2006b) has written about three comparative literature positions: (1) critiquing Western-centric thinking, (2) critiquing ultranationalism, and (3) critiquing a left-wing worldview. From these comparative literature perspectives, Nishihara reconsiders Japanese language education and proposes a process for learning literature therein: reconsidering literature from an international perspective; obtaining opportunities for more deeply understanding other cultures on the basis of connecting literature to culture and the interpretations of students themselves; and acquiring the cultured Japanese used in works of literature

Attention Distribution of Perception and Meaning Processing in Japanese Learners’ Listening Comprehension: An Empirical Study Based on the Dual-Task Approach

This study explores how Chinese learners of Japanese allocate resources for perception and processing of language information in listening comprehension considering attention distribution. The learners’ information-processing mechanism is analyzed in the process of listening comprehension. Specifically, this study controls the individual differentiators of working memory capacity and adopts the approach of dual-task features by simultaneously performing the semantic decision and noise detection tasks for auditory inputs in the experiment. The results show that regardless of the capacity of working memory in the noise detection task, the correct response rate for conditions following the “phrase” was higher than that of conditions within the “phrase.” However, the correct response rate of conditions within the “phrase” in the semantic decision task was higher than that of conditions following the “phrase”. The above findings show that advanced Japanese learners simultaneously perform segmentation of speech flow and semantic processing in terms of unit chunks during the process of listening comprehension

Visual Recognition of Japanese Kanji-Words on Korean Students Leaning Japanese in Advanced-level : Using lexical decision task of words with pre-presentation of Japanese sentences

The purpose of this study is to investigate visual recognition of Japanese kanji-word processing on advanced-level Korean students learning Japanese. In the experiment, high-constraining of sentences were used as pre-presentation conditions, and orthographic and phonological similarities between the Korean and Japanese language were treated as independent variables, while the reaction times from the visual lexical decision task were assigned as the dependent variables. The result shows that the facilitation effect was only observed in the phonological similarities. Indicating that no facilitation effect in the orthographic similarities was found, in contrast to Yanamoto (2015) findings based on the context exclusion word recognition process of advanced-level Korean students learning Japanese. In a word recognition process of Korean students in sentence context, the effect of phonological similarities of the words was significant as well as the effect of context

What Information Do Japanese Learners Pay Attention to When Reading: An Experimental Analysis on Eye-tracking during Oral Reading

Conventional studies on the reading processes of Japanese learners have based their results on the scores of post-reading tests. However, these tests only measure the reading process via an offline method and thus do not reflect the cognitive aspect of the reading process. Therefore, this study investigated an online cognitive process of oral reading by Chinese students learning Japanese by measuring eye movements during reading. The independent variables were the type of instruction and working memory capacity. There were two types of instructions: those based on content comprehension and those on reading speed. The dependent variables were the post-reading test score, reading time, total fixation time and fixation time for important idea units. The eye-movement measurement results showed that the type of instruction affected the reading process, thus affecting overall comprehension, as shown in the post-reading test scores. When compared with the reading speed instructions, the content comprehension instructions produced a greater improvement in attention to details, which was reflected in a longer reading time, total fixation time and fixation time for important idea units. Furthermore, the effect of working memory capacity differed according to the types of instructions. Learners with larger working memory capacity paid more attention to detail in the content comprehension instruction group, with a longer reading time and paying greater attention to important details

What Information do Japanese Learners Pay Attention to When Listening: An Experimental Analysis through Instruction Manipulation and Eye-tracking during Reading

This study aimed to illustrate what information Japanese language learners pay attention to during a listening exercise. We analyzed eye movement to identify the information that Chinese students learning Japanese pay attention to when listening to text. The results showed that the detailed-information instruction group had a longer reading time and a highertotal and keyword fixations than the entire-information instruction group. The participants under detail-information instruction paid more attention to words and phrases with a bottomup strategy during the listening exercise. In contrast, those in the entire-information instruction group paid little attention to detail, skipped through the text and utilized a top-down strategy during the exercise. In conclusion, the results of the experiment indicate that selective attention methods diff er according to listening consciousness

Effects of the Timing of Note Taking on Repeated Listening among Advanced Chinese Japanese Learners: Focusing on the Timing of Note Taking and Working Memory Span

This study aimed to investigate the effects of the timing of note taking on repeated listening for advanced Chinese learners of Japanese. The two independent variables were participants’ working memory capacity and the timing of the note taking. The main results were as follows: In the free recall test, there was a marginal significance that participants with a low working-memory capacity demonstrated better performance when taking notes during the first trail than participants with a high working-memory capacity. However in the fill-in-blank test, regardless of the timing of the note taking, a difference according to the size of working memory capacity was not found. Further, it was found that taking notes during the first trail left a stronger memory trace, whereas taking notes during the second trail was helpful for the understanding of target passages. These results suggest that learners with a smaller memory span can perform better with note taking and learners with a larger memory span are better of taking notes after the first trail