Discussion and suggestions

4. Discussion and suggestions

4.1. Issues of authenticity

Students become easily lost when they try to surf the Internet in Japanese. They are often confused by vast amounts of authentic material, from which it is difficult to extract relevant information. In addition to this, most sites were not created for the specific purpose of foreign language learning, and contain uncontrolled vocabulary and complicated patterns, so the quality of content and language varies greatly. Therefore guiding students to explore the world of the Internet is essential. Specifically:

Selecting the appropriate sites beforehand. If teachers set students the task of surfing the net themselves, it can be time consuming.
Setting clear goals will keep students working on task without going 'off the track' while they are browsing the Web.
Making adequate tasks will give students strategies and confidence in accessing authentic material. There is a great deal of benefit in accessing authentic material even for very young students or beginners.

4.2. A Web-based database

To promote Internet use by Japanese language teachers in Australia, we suggest the development of a homepage to enable leading teachers in this area to network around Australia. The AFMLTA has already created a generic LOTE site, and the JLTAV is creating new resources on its web site. There are also some other web sites involved in similar projects. However, if all these sites pulled together, in other words if these web sites were connected, such a major project would have great success. The central function of this home page would be a web-based database of on-line Japanese language activities. The database should be:

Easy to access. The site would be well known and linked from most related major sites, enabling many people to visit the database quickly.
Easy to use. The site would have a simple interface to encourage teachers to contribute and to get information from it.
Easy to maintain. The site would be half-automated, and would therefore require relatively little the effort to manage and update.

This database should include:

brief information about useful sites on the Internet, and
activity ideas for using these sites.

Using CGI, a program works on the Web, teachers could easily contribute to the database. Teachers searching for resources could directly go to a suitable site from the database. As a resource bank of materials produced by teachers on the Web, it would be one solution for the lack of appropriate materials.

4.3. The JFSLC's plan

Further, based on the summary of the survey, the JFSLC is planning to offer the following professional development activities in the near future:

(1) Workshops for Internet use in teaching Japanese. These will cover the following content:

Technical issues such as handling Japanese script,
How to use resources from the Internet to create activities, and
Upgrading teachers' Japanese proficiency.

(2) Providing information for Internet use in teaching on our web site and newsletter. We will also prepare a feed-back system for workshops using e-mail and a bulletin board system, so participants can continue to share information after the workshop.

As has been the case, we hope to continue to work with the various state authorities to conduct seminars which address the needs of their teachers.

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