Japanese Language Students' Perceptions on Kanji Learning and Their Relationship to Novel Kanji Word Learning Ability

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between how learners of Japanese as a second language perceive the learning of kanji (i.e., the logographic characters shared with Chinese) and their ability to learn novel kanji words using morphological and contextual information. Eighty college students learning Japanese as a foreign language completed a 60-item kanji questionnaire, a 75-item kanji test, and a 30-item reading comprehension test. Results indicated modest but statistically significant correlations between the belief variables and the kanji ability measures, with reading proficiency factored out. Regression analyses revealed that although reading proficiency accounted for a large portion of variance of the participants' performance on the kanji test, belief in the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies accounted for 14-16% of the variance of success in morphological analysis. The results suggest that (a) students' task-specific beliefs have a significant impact on their achievement on a given task and that (b) metacognitive awareness significantly affects how a learner handles a challenging learning task.

Review of recent research (2000–2010) on learning and instruction with specific reference to L2 Japanese

“…The studies outlined above only examined students' own view of their learning strategies, so Mori, Sato & Shimizu (2007) explored the relationship between students' perceptions and their actual use of strategies in handling novel kanji words. The results indicated that belief in the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies could predict success in the compositional analysis of novel kanji characters/words, suggesting that enhancing students' metacognitive awareness may increase their chances of becoming strategic kanji learners.…”

Preliminary report on theKanjiandKatakana(K2) gym: out-of-class character/vocabulary learning activities for Japanese language learners

“…walking, running, and weightlifting) using the equipment provided, hence, K2 (Kanji and Katakana) gym. Various researchers have reported on the Kanji learning strategies adopted by learners from different linguistic backgrounds (Kato 2005;Mori, Sato, and Shimizu 2007;. Of various strategies reviewed, rote learning was frequently employed and both students and instructors considered it to be the most effective learning/teaching strategy (e.g.…”

“…Gamage 2003;Ishida 1989;Iwashita and Sekiguchi 2009;Mori 1999;Mori, Sato, and Shimizu 2007;Toyoda 1998). The difficulty of Kanji is not limited to its writing, but extends to its reading as pointed out by many educators and researchers.…”

The Impact of Flipped Online Kanji Instruction on Written Vocabulary Learning for Introductory and Intermediate Japanese Language Students

“…As a result, a large portion of kanji instruction must often be completed independently, and testing is used as the only measure of what students have learned outside of class. Such limited instruction may account for the overreliance on rote memorization observed among many L2 Japanese students (Mori, Sato, & Shimizu, ; Mori & Shimizu, ). While there is nothing wrong with rote learning, the lack of flexibility in strategy use and the lack of self‐monitoring eventually make it difficult to continue to learn kanji effectively (Mori, ; Rose & Harbon, ; Wang, Spencer, & Xing, ).…”

“…Other studies have consistently demonstrated that the use of multiple sources of information leads to better learning than reliance on a single source of information (Mori, , ; Shen, ). Available strategies include compositional analysis (Jackson, Everson, & Ke, ; Kubota & Toyoda, ; Mori, ; Mori et al, ; Shen & Ke, , Toyoda, ; Yamashita & Maru, ), context‐based strategies (Kondo‐Brown, ; Mori, , Mori & Nagy, ; Taniuchi & Komori, ; Yamagata, ), mnemonic strategies (Kuo & Hooper, ; Kuwabara, ; Rose, ; Soemer & Schwan, ; Toyoda & McNamara, ; Verhaeghen, Palfai, & Johnson, ), and repeated writing (Butler, ; Gamage, , Nesbitt, ; Thomas, , ; Winke, ). The pedagogical implication is that L2 students should be encouraged to use multiple strategies flexibly and effectively in an enriched, multimodal learning environment, as the ability to use metacognitive strategies can be improved through strategy instruction (Ulambayar, ).…”