This paper presents another stage in a series of research efforts by the authors to develop an experience-connected mobile language learning environment, bridging formal and informal learning. Building on a study in which the authors tried to connect classroom learning (of German in Japan) with learners' real life experiences abroad by having smartphones detect the learners' location and supply them with multimedia content matching their real-time communicative situation, the authors developed a hybrid language learning environment supporting different types of learning. Based on observations that learners tended to use resources rather for preparatory or retrospective learning, and on considerations about the potential of social media as a space for informal language learning, the authors added a feature that supports learners when writing a social networking service (SNS) post about their everyday experiences abroad. Help is offered based on the analysis of the learners' geolocational position -hinting to what situation they might want to write about-and on the text they already entered. Based on these data, they are provided with help in the form of vocabulary and/or model texts.
When an incident or event in a certain region will be reported by the mass media in a different language, the choice of expressions, the perspective and aim of their message will differ. This study analyzes the news coverage of events related to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in German, American and Japanese newspapers. It will aim to uncover expressional differences in the coverage on a similar topic reported in different languages. This research especially focuses on the use of religious language in the coverage, which in this paper refers to religious metaphors and symbols originating from a Christian context. Previous research shows that the use of religious language in the media, affects consumers mentally and emotionally. Based on that theory, this study compares how religious language is used in the coverage and tries to clarify the functions of religious expressions through a critical discourse analysis. The results show that religious language appears continuously in German and American news reports related to the disaster. Religious language is mostly used symbolically as well as metaphorically in order to illustrate the destruction caused by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, while at the same time conveying emotions such as the fear of the victims. It is also used to describe the difficulties, suffering and hope of the people in the disaster-hit area. Moreover religious language provokes emotions in the readers and makes it easier for them to understand the situation in Japan as well as the feelings of the disaster refugees. A difference between the German and American news coverage was seen in the description of the situation at the nuclear power plant and the state of the victims in Fukushima and the Tohoku region. In Germany, religious language can change the viewpoint of and provoke emotions in the readers. It is also employed to emphasize domestic social and political problems related to German energy policy.
This paper presents the prototype of a Mobile Language Learning Environment (MLLE) allowing learners of German at a Japanese university to map classroom learning content onto the pathways of their everyday lives, turning places they come by into mnemonic loci, and thus changing their daily commute into a learning trail. Even though the evaluation based on learners' self-reports could not confirm the assumption that this type of MLLE supports the use of the loci method for all learners, it allows the conclusion that at least for some learners mnemonic mapping with mobile devices might lead to changes in learning awareness and an expansion of strategy knowledge.
The authors present a project that aims at understanding the way language learners write in social media in their every day lives using the target language. How do our students proceed when writing a Social Network Site (SNS) post? What resources do they use for references on word, sentences and text level? By answering these and related questions through extensive collection of empirical data in an analytic learning environment, the design of which is the next step of this project, the authors aim at creating a comprehensive resource that supports different approaches to writing in social media. In the projects' first step, which the authors will lay out in this paper, writing processes of a small number of informants were closely analyzed using experiments, interviews and self-reports. The findings showed considerable differences of resource management between students with different backgrounds in formal learning and revealed a differentiation into 'public' and 'private' space of informal writing in social media, that influenced students' choices regarding the degree of formal elaboration (with respect to correctness) of their texts.
This study aims to enhance foreign language learners' language competence by integrating formal and informal learning environments and considers how they can improve their grammatical and lexical skills through the gathering (comprehension) and sharing (writing) of information in the foreign language. Experiments with German learners at a Japanese university preparing to study in Germany were conducted. An application to archive newspaper articles was created, indexing current German coverage. A worksheet was provided, where learners were asked to select, read, and summarize articles via the application. Feedback was given to their summary. Participants were divided into two groups, learners that studied only in an informal setting, and those that were also instructed in a formal setting. Interviews were conducted with the participants in order to evaluate how the activities affected their language skills. Results showed that the practice affected their reading methods and heightened their motivation for further language learning in general. Students participating in activities in and outside the classroom showed improvements in their lexical knowledge, and better understanding of subtle nuances in written texts, which positively affected their writing skills and their speaking ability.
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