Open AccessEffectiveness of the Visual–Auditory Shadowing Method on Learning the Pronunciation of Kanji
Author(s) -
Nakayama Tomokazu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/jpr.12278
Subject(s) - pronunciation , kanji , vocabulary , orthography , psychology , linguistics , computer science , speech recognition , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , chinese characters , reading (process) , philosophy
This study investigates whether the visual–auditory (VA) shadowing method can better facilitate vocabulary learning for learners of Japanese as a second language (JSL) than the visual–visual (VV) shadowing method in K‐8 immersion education. Learning vocabulary involves three aspects: meaning, orthography, and pronunciation. The Japanese language has complex orthography and pronunciation. Learners of Japanese need to learn three kinds of orthographic characters: ideographs (kanji) and two kinds of syllabic characters (hiragana and katakana). In addition, because the pronunciation of kanji can vary by context, learners must learn several pronunciations for a single kanji character. This study explores a reasonable way to learn pronunciations of kanji and compares VA shadowing ( n = 48) and VV shadowing ( n = 47) to investigate which condition better facilitates learning the pronunciation of Japanese ideographs. The analysis suggests that compared to the VV shadowing condition ( p < .05), the VA shadowing condition is more effective for Level 3 learners but not for Level 2 or Level 1 learners.