SNSを用いた遠隔交流授業の有用性

Abstract

In this article, we conducted the remote-communication practice based on social media applications(Kakao Talk or LINE), where 18 Korean learners of Japanese and 21 native speakers of Japanese communicate on a one-to-one basis. There are three main findings as well as two problems associated with this type of practice. Firstly, this practice was beneficial for developing learners’ abilities of talking in Japanese. This is confirmed by the positive remarks made by more than 80% of the students. Secondly, the practice served as the opportunity for learners to make friends with other leaners of the same generation. As they share common interests due to the same generation, they said, they were able to enjoy conversations in a friendly manner and gained valuable experiences which would not be obtained in normal conversation classes. Thirdly, the result shows that Japanese people tend to take much time to reply to e-mail messages. This suggests that the practice of remote communications not only affects language learning but also enables learners to directly understand the nature of Japanese people. On the other hand, there are two problems. Firstly, there were issues with difficulty in communications, such as “Some people failed to reach their partners” and “Some people found it difficult to contact their partners.” This problem could be solved if we ensure that IDs are carefully handled (e.g. IDs are typed, notated in Hiragana, and so on) so that IDs can be successfully detected. Other possible solutions include the needs to set up the deadline for an initial contact and to tell students at the other university, through the teachers at the university, that they will be contacted shortly. Secondly, the issue of “Japanese students’ reluctance to make a video call to others.” This issue also needs to be addressed in future work.