Nihongo gakushusha no daigaku deno gakushu keiken - mochibeshon no kanten kara (How do post-beginners feel about their experience of learning Japanese at a university?: From a motivational point of view)

Whilst the need for ‘articulation’ has been called for in the field of Japanese education worldwide in recent years (Tohsaku (2009) etc.), bridging between school and university has become a particularly important issue in the UK where the number of learners is increasing at secondary schools (J-GAP Europe (2013)).

In fact, having analysed the five-year data for those who entered the Japanese degree programme at the University of Leeds between 2005 and 2009, no significant difference was observed in terms of the Japanese language skills achieved at the time of graduation between those students who had studied Japanese for qualifications at secondary schools (‘post-beginners’) and those who started learning Japanese from scratch at university. This may suggest that the Japanese programme at the University may not successfully provide those post-beginners with the best opportunities to make the most of their previous learning experience.

However, previous research dealing with issues of articulation is limited in number, and few studies have closely examined how post-beginners find their experience of learning Japanese and how their attitude and motivation affect their ability to attain Japanese language skills.

Using both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews involving the first-year students in Leeds, this research will investigate what the post-beginners’ initial motivations are and how they develop over their course of study. Furthermore, retrospective feedback on their experience of learning Japanese will be obtained from the upper-year students who had studied Japanese before coming to Leeds via a questionnaire. Based on Sakai & Kikuchi (2009) and other previous studies, these sources of data will be analysed from the perspective of demotivational factors, and discussed in terms of how the Japanese programme could be improved by referring to the motivation strategies proposed by Dörnyei (2001) and Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011).

References:

Tohsaku, Y. 2009. AP Japanese Language and Culture Program and Articulation, The 23rd Conference of the Japanese Teachers Association of New England and The 14th Conference of the Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese Proceedings, 20 June 2009, Amherst College, USA, [Accessed 10 January 2014], Available from World Wide Web:

<https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/asian/JLTANE/proceedings>.

Dörnyei, Z. 2001. Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Longman.

Dörnyei, Z. and Ushioda, E. 2011. Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Longman.

Japanese Global Articulation Project (J-GAP) Europe. 2013. Japanese Language Education in the UK – The Transition between Secondary School and University. J-GAP Europe

Sakai, H., and Kikuchi, K, 2009. An analysis of demotivators in the EFL classroom.System,37(1), [Accessed 10 January 2014], pp. 57-69. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0346251X08001280>.