Misuzu Kazama, Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies
Misuzu Kazama taught this 3rd year Japanese course (Advanced Modern Japanese – Reading and Writing II) for the first time in Summer 2015. Misuzu showed an interest in using the eNunciate Japanese video tutorials, noting: “Some students do not notice their native language interference. Therefore they keep studying Japanese with their pronunciation unfixed without knowing that some pronunciation is wrong. In the long run, these incorrect pronunciations may get fossilized and gradually become more difficult to correct.”
Similar to the learning technique known as Shadowing, students were required to mimic Misuzu’s (expert) speech, which was shared through CLAS. Each student was also asked to record their most satisfactory speech and share it with the instructor for feedback.
The Course
The course was a face-to-face thematic semi-content-based course designed for students who wish to develop linguistic and strategic competencies in reading and writing modern Japanese prose at an advanced level. There were 7 students. Although the course is a reading and writing course, Misuzu also emphasizes that good listening and speaking skills are essential for successful performance in this course. To improve students’ phonological awareness and to improve their fluency in Japanese, students were required to practice reading texts out loud for two assignments. Each student was required to record their own reading on the Collaborative Learning Annotation System (CLAS). Similar to the learning technique known as Shadowing, students were required to mimic Misuzu’s (expert) speech, which was shared through CLAS. Each student was also asked to record their most satisfactory speech and share it with the instructor for feedback. Misuzu watched and provided written and/or video feedback on students’ recordings through CLAS. Whenever Misuzu noticed mispronunciations in students’ CLAS recording assignments, she included links to the relevant eNunciate resources in her feedback using the annotation tool in CLAS.
Misuzu watched and provided written and/or video feedback on students’ recordings through CLAS. Whenever Misuzu noticed mispronunciations in students’ CLAS recording assignments, she included links to the relevant eNunciate resources in her feedback using the annotation tool in CLAS.
Results
After the first recording assignment, because of my feedback and eNunciate guidance, some students noticed their native language interference. After being asked to use the eNunciate materials, these students showed significant improvement in their reading fluency when reading the same paragraph out loud on the second recording assignment. For example, the majority of Mandarin-speaking students had difficulty differentiating between voiced and voiceless sounds as well as between long and short vowel sounds in Japanese, and one Korean-speaking student had difficulties both with pitch and with some sound differences between her native language and Japanese. The eNunciate site explains the mechanics of accurate pronunciation in its tutorial videos in a way that’s easy to understand for students. This helps students’ awareness of their own pronunciation problems. Moreover, by allowing students to watch the videos at home, eNunciate also saves instructors the time and effort that might otherwise be spent teaching pronunciation in the classroom.
The Future
Misuzu finds the Japanese online tutorials at the eNunciate site useful the way they are. She also reported that CLAS was a great tool because it allows both recording of student speech and feedback through the annotation tool. This system is especially convenient for students who shy away from having their face recorded. Besides a recording assignment through CLAS, some pair work or group work in class would also work for pronunciation learning. Students would be able to check their pronunciation with each other if they are grouped according to their native languages (and hence the pronunciation difficulties they are likely to face).