Japanese contains many words borrowed from English, which differ from the source word both phonologically and/or semantically. This study examined how short classroom interventions can facilitate recognizing (i) the spoken forms of these words in English, and (ii) semantic differences between loanwords and their English counterparts. Thirty participants were divided into 3 groups: an English-only treatment group, a Japanese English treatment group, and a control group. Each group completed a pretest requiring them to (i) identify loan words pronounced in English, and (ii) provide the meanings of these words. Thereafter the first group was given the correct English pronunciation and meanings of these words without reference to their Japanese counterparts. The second group was explicitly taught the difference between the English and Japanese versions. To assess the efficacy of the 2 treatments, the groups were given a posttest. Results confirmed that the contrastive method is the most effective.

Japanese contains many words borrowed from English, which differ from the source word both phonologically and/or semantically. This study examined how short classroom interventions can facilitate recognizing (i) the spoken forms of these words in English, and (ii) semantic differences between loanwords and their English counterparts. Thirty participants were divided into 3 groups: an English-only treatment group, a Japanese English treatment group, and a control group. Each group completed a pretest requiring them to (i) identify loan words pronounced in English, and (ii) provide the meanings of these words. Thereafter the first group was given the correct English pronunciation and meanings of these words without reference to their Japanese counterparts. The second group was explicitly taught the difference between the English and Japanese versions. To assess the efficacy of the 2 treatments, the groups were given a posttest. Results confirmed that the contrastive method is the most effective.