A Research on the Attitude Changes of the Teacher-trainees and the Learners in Japanese Language Teaching Practice

Research Project

Project/Area Number	09680294
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Japanese language education
Research Institution	Tohoku University
Principal Investigator	SAITA Izumi Tohoku University, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Professor., 文学部, 教授 (20186919)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	OGAWARA Yoshiro Tohoku University, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Assistant., 文学部, 助手 (70302065) SUZUKI Atsuko Tohoku University, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Associate professor., 文学部, 助教授 (50265518) KIKUCHI Akio Iwate Prefectural University, Faculty of Social Welfare, Professor., 社会福祉学部, 教授 (10007289) 松崎寛東北大学, 文学部, 助手 (10250648) 大坪一夫東北大学, 文学部, 教授 (20115538)
Project Period (FY)	1997 – 1998
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1998)
Budget Amount *help	¥3,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,600,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000) Fiscal Year 1997: ¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000)
Keywords	Japanese language teaching practice / teacher trainee / Japanese language learner / class images / undergraduate / graduate / professional teacher / 学習者 / 態度尺度 / 言語学習ビリ-フ / 社会的スキル / 文化的要因
Research Abstract	The research purpose is to investigate how the experience in teaching or learning in the Japanese language lessons held by the teacher-trainees invites the attitude changes of teacher trainees and the learners. As for the teacher-trainees, undergraduate level and the graduate level subjects were examined. The data were collected by using questionnaires and the Personal Attitude Construct Analysis Method developed by Naito (1997).For the purpose of comparison, one young professional teacher with three year teaching experience was also investigated. The undergraduate level changed their images on the Japanese language lessons from the very vague one to the concrete one. Just before the teaching practice starts, they showed little involvement in images. Most of the images described seemed as if quoted from a methodology book, After the teaching experiences, they became quite subjective. Their comments were full of what they did or did not, what they should have done and how they felt. Very few comments on the learners were obtained. The graduate level subjects, who happened to have one year professional teaching experience, showed that they had their own policies when entering in a language classroom. This is one of the big difference between undergraduate and graduate trainees. However, the class images that the graduate ones had were also consisted of various factors that had to do with themselves, not with learners. In contrast, the professional teacher showed quite different class images by referring to how the learning ingeneral would be taken place, how the language learners might feel about learning, and how a teacher can help them to get rid of the frustration. In conclusion, two levels of trainees are regarded to be in the same stage in the process of attitude structure change which is supposed to be triggered by the amount of teaching experiences.