WLTR Japanese

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Intermediate reader in technical and scientific Japanese
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawai‘i, 1997) Shinzato, R.
    This textbook is designed so that intermediate Japanese students may learn complex grammatical structures and reading strategies at the same time that they acquire scientific and technical knowledge. The reading passages gradually increase in grammatical and structural complexity while becoming conceptually more sophisticated. Thus students with little scientific or technical background can “read to learn” new knowledge. The topics include batteries, semiconductors, computers, biochips, biotechnology, and AIDS. This user-friendly textbook also keeps the interest of readers with its ample illustrations, intriguing trivia facts, and up-to-date discussion topics such as environmental issues, trade friction, intellectual property rights, and cloning.
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    Integration of National Standards in a Japanese language classroom (manual+video)
    (National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawai‘i, 1999) Hijirida, K.; Ishida, K.; Yamamoto, Y.
    This 20-minute video plus guidebook familiarizes pre-service and in-service teachers of Japanese with the “five C” goals of the Japanese National Standards and illustrates the concept of learning scenarios with classroom examples. The guidebook assists the viewers as well as supplements the video with additional examples and tips. The video project was funded by the US-Japan Foundation and supported by the National Working Group on Japanese Language Competency Goals, convened by the Association of the Teachers of Japanese (ATJ) and the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT). Video is encoded with DivX, you may download a free DivX video viewer for viewing the videos in our collection at http://www.divx.com/en/products/software/windows/divx (Windows) or http://www.divx.com/en/products/software/mac/divx (Mac).
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    Asian role play cards (Japanese)
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawai‘i, 1993)
    These cards provide task-based role play situations for teaching and testing in East Asian cultural contexts. Specific sets have been created for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, although some of the most universal situations are included in all three sets
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    Reanalysis of discernment from a social constructivist perspective: Academic consultation sessions in Japanese universities
    (National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005) Cook, H.C.
    From the social constructivist perspective, this paper examines speech style shifts in academic consultation sessions between professors and students in Japanese universities and demonstrates that politeness is an interactional achievement. The paper attempts to show how what has previously been described as a display of discernment can be reanalyzed as an active co construction in the sequential organization of talk.
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    Japanese placement tests at the University of Hawai‘i: Applying item response theory
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2000) Kondo-Brown, K.; Brown, J.D.
    First-rate placement procedures are important for effective teaching and learning in any language program because they help create classes that are relatively homogeneous in terms of the language proficiency of the students. The main purpose of this study was to investigate how effectively and efficiently the current norm-referenced Japanese Placement Test (JPT) battery for the Japanese language program (three multiple-choice tests and essay test) at UHM separates the incoming students of Japanese into different course levels. The XCalibretm computer software program (Assessment Systems, 1997) was used to estimate the discrimination, difficulty, and guessing parameters for each item on each multiple-choice test. Based on these IRT analyses, we were able to suggest that all three multiple-choice tests be reduced in length while maintaining the same, if not better, level of reliability. Additional analyses of the interrater reliability of the essay tests using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula led us to suggest that the essay test might be made more efficient by using two raters instead of three. The pattern of correlation coefficients between the tests indicates a certain degree of convergent validity for all the tests in this study, especially the subscales within the essay test. At the same time, when factor analysis was applied, support for divergent validity was also found based on language skills and testing method.
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    Identity and second language learning: Local Japanese learning Japanese in Hawai‘i
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2000) Sugita, M.
    This is an ethnographic case study of four Japanese American university students studying the Japanese language in Hawai’i. Drawing on Rampton’s (1990) concepts of language expertise, inheritance, and affiliation, this study investigates the role of the Japanese language in the construction of the students’ identities. Moving beyond Rampton’s discussion, the careful examination of the relationship between the individual students and their study of Japanese provides a more accurate understanding of these concepts. The findings reveal that the students’ language inheritance and affiliation, which are understood as their "continuity" with other Japanese Americans in Hawai’i and their "connection" to the language and culture in Japan respectively, have different significance for each student. It is suggested that, by paying sufficient attention to these two aspects, which are both important factors in the construction of the students’ identities, teachers can integrate the National Standards for Japanese into their classroom more successfully.
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    Explicit instruction and JFL learners' use of interactional discourse markers in extended tellings
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1999) Yoshimi, D.R.
    This paper reports on a semester-long study of the explicit instruction of Japanese discourse markers to English-speaking, intermediate learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language. It was found that the learners improved their use of DMs, particularly to manage fundamental aspects of their extended tellings: openings, presentation of content and closings.
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    L2 vocabulary learning strategies
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1999) Kudo, Y.
    Explicit instruction can facilitate learner awareness of the surface features of a language, but does not guarantee it. Similarly, learners in an incidental learning condition are not necessarily unaware. This study investigated the development of awareness, among Japanese ESL learners, of rules of thumb for the use of zero and definite articles with place names under an explicit instruction condition, in which learners were given the rules plus examples, and an incidental instruction condition, in which learners responded to sentences containing examples. All instruction was computerized. Instruction was given in English and was followed by a twenty-question debriefing interview conducted in the learners' L1 in order to assess their awareness. The findings show that awareness could develop under either condition, but that the explicit condition was much more facilitative. The study also found a very strong relationship between awareness and improved learner performance.
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    Japanese language needs analysis 1998-1999
    (Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1999) Iwai, T.; Kondo, K.; Lim, D.S.J.; Ray, G.; Shimizu, H.; Brown, J.D.
    This report presents the results of the first stage of an on-going curriculum development project aimed at creating performance based tests for the first and second year Japanese language courses at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. That first stage is a needs analysis of the learning needs of first and second year Japanese language students as perceived by the students and their teachers. This introductory section will lay the groundwork by discussing a number of relevant issues including the following: (a) the community background (including the vitality of the Japanese in Hawai`i), (b) the Japanese Language Program and the students at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, and (c) a literature review on needs analysis (including subsections on needs analysis in general education, needs analysis in ESL curriculum development, and needs analysis in Japanese curriculum development).