2001 ATJ Seminar
Thursday, March 22, 2001, Sheraton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois
Seminar E: Pedagogy: Teaching Japanese in the Internet Era
インターネット時代に対応した新しい日本語教育

III. インターネット時代に対応した読解教育の実践とその評価
(Implementation and Evaluation of a Japanese Language Tutorial System for Reading Using Information Technology)
川村　よし子、 東京国際大学
Yoshiko Kawamura, Tokyo International University
kawamura@tiu.ac.jp
http://language.tiu.ac.jp

This study presents an Internet-based reading tutorial system and also how to make good use of this system in a Japanese language class. The Japanese Language Reading Tutorial System, Reading Tutor, makes use of Internet sources as study materials for JFL/JSL (Japanese as a foreign/second language) learners. The components include: 1.The Dictionary Tool (Kawamura and Kitamura 1998), a dictionary-linked system, which automatically shows the reading of each kanji or kanji-combination and the meaning of each word in a text. 2.The Level Checker (Kawamura 1998), a computer software program developed to estimate the level of difficulty of Japanese reading materials according to the Japanese Proficiency Exam levels. 3. Reading Materials Bank contains over 350 texts that are already processed with the Diciontary Tool. It is geared towards intermediate learners, for whom good learning materials on the Internet are less available.

The various components of this system have been integrated to allow JFL/JSL learners to use Internet sources for study purposes in a more systematic way. The system also has a learning process management function. It records every word accessed to the dictionary (i.e., clicked by the learner) and shows the record to the learner after he/she finishes reading. This function is effective in the acquisition of vocabulary. It is the purpose of this integrated system to allow the learner more choices in the selection of materials and more autonomy in setting his/her own learning goals. This system is available to the public over the Internet at http://language.tiu.ac.jp. The class report using this system is also available at http://language.tiu.ac.jp/viennadiary/index.html.