Design of Learning Environment for Beginning Level Japanese Education: Classroom as a Community A Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of New South Wales in April, 2009 Tetsushi Ohara School of Languages and Linguistics The University of New South Wales ii ORIGINALITY STATEMENT I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in this thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT I hereby grant the University of New South Wales (UNSW) or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in the future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the three hundred and fifty word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International. I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material. AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format. …………………………………………… .………../…………/……….. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Chihiro Kinoshita Thomson for her invaluable advice, encouragement, support, tolerance, and patience. This thesis would not have been possible without her supportive and critical readings of various drafts of the thesis and numerous discussions to organise my research. Her guidance and inspiration assisted me in refining the focus of my thesis. I am also indebted to my co-supervisor, Ms. Hiromi Masumi-So for her insightful advice and unselfish guidance during the last stage of the thesis. Her advice and guidance helped me finish the thesis. I also owe special thanks to Ms. Tara Mathey for editing my thesis. Her advice and suggestions help me improve my English and sentence structures in my thesis. I would like to thank the teacher who taught the revision courses in the research. Her dedication to teaching was inspirational. I am also thankful to the academic staffs, especially Ms Nagisa Fukui, Ms Yumiko Hashimoto, and Dr Kazue Okamoto, in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to give me opportunities to participate in a variety of Japanese courses at UNSW. The opportunities inspired me to design the revision courses. I would like to thank the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and its committee members at UNSW to grant me the research funds to conduct the research. I am also grateful to Dr Noriko Kobayashi at Tsukuba University who has given me permission to use the Simple Performance-Oriented Test (SPOT) in the research. I would also like to thank Ms. Christine Hung to help the final editing tasks of the thesis as well as give me moral support in the final stage of writing the thesis. Finally, my sincere gratitude to my parents in Japan, as this thesis would not have been possible without the support that they have given me in every aspect to pursue my academic interest and career. iv ABSTRACT The context of this study lies in the fact that in Australia, compared to learners of Japanese language in Japan, learners tend to have fewer opportunities to use Japanese. For many learners in Australia, especially beginners, it is difficult to find a variety of opportunities and maintain motivation to seek out and participate in such opportunities to use Japanese. In the present study, the researcher exploits sociocultural approaches (SCT) in a beginning-level Japanese language program in an institutional setting in order to enable language learners to become language users in Australia. Based on Lave and Wenger (1999), the study considers that learning a foreign/second language brings about not only the acquisition of linguistic structures but also leads to changes in participation in communities. Adopting SCT, the researcher created Japanese language revision courses at an Australian university and designed participant roles, rules, and artefacts in the revision courses as well as devising activities that aimed to develop the classroom into a community and to enhance the use of Japanese as a means of self-expression for learners. The results of the study show that the learners developed a sense of community in the classroom through a variety of activities in the revision course. One of the new roles introduced for this study, the role of the nicchoku, had a significant effect on making classroom interaction learner-centred and authentic. Under the leadership of the nicchoku, other learners engaged in learning activities, while the teacher stepped aside to take a support role. The nicchoku altered the typical teacher-fronted classroom sequence of Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) and helped redistribute classroom turns more evenly among classroom members. The study suggests that interactions are important not only to learn language but also to build human relationships. Thus, if the course aims to build both language proficiency and a learning community, it is necessary to create a variety of interaction opportunities in the classroom so that learners can acquire interactional competence/social skills to build a good relationship in a target language in/outside of the classroom. v The results of the SPOT show a significant improvement in the Japanese proficiency of all the learners in the revision course. In addition, the study described an acquisition process of the verb ‘ogoru’ as an example. The learners encountered the expression, learned its linguistic structure, applied it to a variety of contexts to learn its usage, and used it as a means of self-expression. The process showed that using the linguistic structure as a means of self-expression occurred through, first, acquisition of the linguistic structure, second, exposure to appropriate applications including sociolinguistic aspects in a given context and, third, experiences of a variety of interactions though activities. Thus, all stages of classroom activities are necessary to help learners enhance their ability to use Japanese as a means of self-expression. These findings suggest the classroom can provide learners with opportunities to use Japanese as a means of self-expression if the roles and activities in the classroom are carefully designed to bring learners into learner-centred interaction sequences, which are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the typical teacher-fronted IRF sequences. In addition, the study indicates that learning a foreign language and becoming a language user is a complex and dynamic process of learners participating in communities that are created, maintained, and changed by their members, the acquisition of linguistic structures and appropriate application to context, and individual learners’ personal attributes and experience. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Originality Statement....…………………………………………………………….iii Copyright Statement….……………………………………………………………..iii Authenticity Statement……………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………..........iv Abstract………………………………………………………………………….…....v Table of Contents……………………………………………………………….......vii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………….xi List of Tables………………………………………………………………………..xii Notes on Style and Terminology…………………………………………………..xiii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms……………………………………………..xiv Notes on Terms……………………………………………………………………..xiv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF THE PRESENT STUDY………………………………………………………………………………..1 1.0. Context for the research……………………………………………………..….1 1.1. Research areas, focuses, and contributions…………………………………....6 1.2. Summary of theoretical framework: Sociocultural approach……………......8 1.3. Summary of methodology……………………………………………………...11 1.4. Structure of the thesis…………………………………………………….…....14 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: LITERATURE REVIEW..16 2.0. Introduction to this chapter……………………………………………….…..16 2.1. School learning………………………………………………………………....16 2.2. Concepts of learning……………………………………………………….…...22 2.3. Sociocultural approach………………………………………………………...26 2.4. Activity theory………………………………………………………………….30 2.5. Zone of Proximal Development and Learner Autonomy…………………....36 2.6. Scaffolding……………………………………………………………………...38 2.7. Language programs based on a Sociocultural Approach…………………...41 2.8. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….…...44 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……………………………….…46 vii 3.0. Introduction