No description available.

No description available.

Although much research has reported the effectiveness of task repetition on oral performance (Bygate, 2018), few studies have investigated its effectiveness on writing performance (Manchón, 2014), especially in languages other than English. For instance, Nitta and Baba’s (2014) longitudinal study revealed that EFL undergraduates considerably progressed their syntactic complexity and lexical aspects, but not fluency, through repeating a timed writing task. In relation to the task repetition, however, whether and how L2 learners develop their grammatical accuracy and communicative adequacy (Pallotti, 2009) has remained unclear in the literature. Furthermore, in addition to the linguistic measurements and the qualitative assessments, scant research has attempted to investigate whether any significant changes are brought about in terms of learners’ perceptions through repeating language tasks. <br>Therefore, the current study has shed new light on the developmental changes in the writing performance of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) learners. It investigated whether any remarkable changes are brought about in terms of overall complexity, complexity by subordination, accuracy, and fluency through repeating a weekly “15-Minute Writing Task” throughout one academic semester (16 weeks) and one academic year (32 weeks). The writing task topics were considered in terms of the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001), which states that different cognitive demands of tasks will lead to different L2 output. Regarding this point, this study explored whether there were any significant differences between two task types: descriptive and argumentative essays. JFL learners who were enrolled in an intermediate-level course at an American university engaged in the two different types of timed writing tasks.<br>First, the one-semester investigation, based on the pre/posttest analysis, revealed different patterns between the two types of writing tasks. For the descriptive essays, despite the improvements in overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency with a large effect size (r ≥ .6) (Plonsky & Oswald, 2014), no significant findings were confirmed for accuracy. In contrast, in the argumentative essays, the learners improved all the linguistic aspects but with a medium effect size (.4 ≤ r < .6).<br>Second, in the one-year investigation, the JFL learners significantly improved overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency during the study period. The dynamic systems approach (Verspoor & van Dijk, 2011) also unraveled the developmental trajectories to show how different variables interacted in the two different types of writing tasks, respectively, throughout the measurement period. Although there were no statistically significant differences in grammatical accuracy measures, the process of L2 writing development showed fluctuations, demonstrating that the improvements in syntactic complexity seemed to have caused many grammatical errors temporarily. Lastly, the learners’ compositions, which were also assessed qualitatively by two native Japanese speakers in terms of readability, indicated significant improvements in communicative adequacy.<br>Finally, to investigate any changes in the learners’ beliefs toward Japanese writing before and after the task repetition, the JFL learners completed the Belief Questionnaire About Writing in Japanese (Ishibashi, 2009). In addition, to examine any changes in foreign language anxiety with a focus on Japanese writing, the learners were required to complete the second-language version of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test (Cheng, Horwitz, & Schallert, 1999). The study found that the extensive writing experience had a positive impact on the JFL learners’ confidence and willingness when writing in L2 Japanese.<br><br>

No description available.

Motivation always attracts language teachers’ attention as one of the most significant factors for second language learning. In the past decades, motivational studies have experienced transitions and developments, and various studies investigated language learning motivation. (Dörnyei and Ryan, 2015) However, those motivational studies indicate that research outcomes vary depending on languages, contexts, and individuals, and understanding L2 learning motivation requires investigations at the local level.<div>This study examined the motivation of Japanese learners at a large state university in the Midwestern United States by asking them to respond to an online survey with eleven motivational factors that include the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009) and the anti-ought-to L2 self (Thompson & Vásquez, 2015). <div>The main findings are as follows. First, attitude towards leaning Japanese, classroom support, the ideal L2 self, and the anti-ought-to L2 self had significant relationships with students’ intended effort. Second, rather than how long/in which course students study, why/for what they are learning Japanese makes the most significant differences in their motivation. Third, the ought-to L2 self might not be the best motivational factor for learning Japanese since characteristics of Japanese are different from those of English, which is widely used around the world. Fourth, interest in Japanese anime, manga, and games did not correlate with participants’ ideal L2 self and intended effort although interest in the other cultural items showed moderate correlations with those factors. Fifth, the longer/higher-level their learning experience became, the less interest participants showed in Japanese anime, manga, and pop culture, indicating that their interest in these cultural aspects began to vary and shifted to the other aspects of Japanese culture. </div><div>The main pedagogical implications suggested by the study are that there is a need to help students to set realistic goals and visualize future self-image with the Japanese language so that they can continue learning regardless of the course level or length of study, and teachers should consider at which stages their students are, and on the basis of that, decide how much anime and manga to incorporate into their lessons.</div></div>

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a computer-based Japanese/English diglot reader on the breadth and depth of the acquisition of kanji-words. On a diglot reader, L2 text is embedded in L1 text, thus allowing L2 learners to receive enough context to understand the L2 text and learn vocabulary in it. This study was also conducted to determine the effects of two methods of presenting pronunciation of kanji-words, audio recording and romaji, on the acquisition of the meaning and pronunciation of kanji-words as well as the overall effect of learning of pronunciation on the learning and retention of meaning. Eighty-one university students enrolled in first-year Japanese classes participated in this study. They were divided into four groups, and each group received a version of the diglot reader with different presentation of pronunciation for self-study. One group received the reader with audio recording and romaji, one with audio only, one with romaji only, and the other with neither of them. A 50-item kanji pretest, posttest, and a retention test were administered. The posttest was administered immediately after the experiment and the retention test one week later. Results show that overall, participants gained the meaning of 21 words and the pronunciation of 17 words through the diglot reader. Mostly they gained the depth of knowledge of kanji-words that allowed them to understand the meaning of the words, but not to write sentences with them. The retention rates for meaning and pronunciation were both .73 one week after the completion of reading. No significant effects of audio and romaji notation of pronunciation were found on the learning of meaning of kanji-words. However, those who learned both the meaning and the pronunciation of kanji-words had a higher retention rate of kanji meaning than those who learned the meaning only, thus suggesting a benefit of learning pronunciation along with meaning when learning kanji. Results also indicated that when participants received pronunciation information in one form while reading, either in audio or romaji, giving an additional form of pronunciation information did not have significant effects on their learning of pronunciation.

No description available.