Learning Japanese Online for Hawaii Retail Sales

Abstract

Over 25% of the customers of a particular Hawaii-based clothing retail company are from Japan. Surprisingly, only a handful of staff can speak conversational Japanese. The participants of this study were retail store staff members that interact with Japanese customers on a daily basis. Meeting synchronously face-to-face for a language class is very difficult because these participants have sporadic business schedules. Therefore, a website was created incorporating definitions, audio files, recording tools, screencasts, flash games, and quizzes to help reinforce learning and cater to various learning styles. Surveys indicated that the majority of participants gave high scores to the content and found it to be interesting, engaging, and motivational. However, some participants claimed to experience technical difficulties with audio and web forms. Despite the challenges, the majority showed an increase in scores progressing from pre-test to post-test. The purpose of this instructional design project was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a webbased module teaching Japanese phrases to Hawaii retail sales associates and managers who interact with Japanese customers.