From Survey Report on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 1998, Japanese Language Institute, Urawa.
I will now give a brief history of technology in language education which has led to the Internet use of today.
Computers first appeared in classrooms about 20 years ago, mainly for use with maths classes, and have now become a common feature in schools. In Australia, the first Japanese CAI resources appeared about 10 - 15 years ago in HyperCard stacks format.
At first teachers tried to create their own teaching resources, but soon the "CD-ROM era" came along. Acording to the Survey Report on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 1998 conducted by the Japan Foundation, among the four tools of word processing software, CD-ROM, WWW and e-mail, the CD-ROM was the most commonly used medium in Australian primary and secondary schools.
Fig. 1: Computer use in Australian Primary
and Secondary School Classrooms
(Number of primary and secondary institutions
in Australia: 1639)
From Survey Report on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 1998, Japanese Language Institute, Urawa.
Language CD-ROMs, which are widely used in Australia today (Fig. 1), started to appear five years ago. Examples of these are Japan Album, Language Market and Michio Teaches Japanese. CD-ROMs for teacher training were also developed, eg. Japanese for Teachers as a part of the Southern Cross University course and the CD-ROM used in the OPAL program. A long history of distance education in Australia was a contributing factor in the development of multi-media resources. Overcoming the tyranny of distance and providing access to quality resources have been major issues for the various Departments of Education.
Because of this background, in Australian schools the readiness for the Internet was there; teachers were aware of what multi-media resources could do, and students were computer literate because many of them had computer games at home, therefore moving from computer use to the Internet was not a big step. Internet use had already been introduced at tertiary level, and secondary and primary level education followed this trend.
The various departments of education have implemented procedures and funded projects to encourage Internet use in schools.
In Western Australia, the Education Department (1999) has set a target of updating equipment in schools and a computer:student ratio of 1:5 for secondary and 1:10 for primary schools by the year 2002.
Education Queensland has recently changed its mail-out system from snail mail, i.e. post mail, to e-mail combined with web site. Teachers are requested to visit the web site to access information such as upcoming professional development. Education QLD has also made an agreement with Microsoft regarding use of their products including Microsoft Office at government schools and at teachers' home use.
In Victoria, the state government is planning to purchase state copies of Office 2000 and schools can use the software cost free from Term 4 this year. They also provide Japanese specific seminars for using the Internet in teaching in cooperation with the JLTAV. The JLTAV is also planning an on-line activities competition.
In NSW, Department of Education and Training Curriculum Support Directorate have been running hands-on inservices based on their manual "Computer-based technologies in the Languages KLA." This outstanding manual provides a lot of generic activity ideas which can be used in the classroom with limited facilities. As yet they have not held a Japanese specific inservice for now, though they are providing language specific inservices on CALL software. Because, according to the Languages Technology Consultant, most Japanese teachers do not use the Internet as much as teachers of some European languages. Difficulty with script is believed to be the major reason which make the teachers reluctant to access Japanese web sites.