33637232 Japanese Language Teaching

Japanese Language Teaching

Japanese Language Teaching

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Japanese Language Teaching A Communicative Approach Alessandro G. Benati

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704 11 York Road New York London SE1 7NX NY 10038 © Alessandro G. Benati 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Alessandro G. Benati has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-8264-9881-6 (Hardback) 978-0-8264-9882-3 (Paperback) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Publisher has applied for CIP data.

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books, Cornwall

In memory of my mother  Anna Maria Ferrari

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Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction

viii ix 1

PART A PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

1 Preliminary Considerations 2 The Role of Focus on Form

7 35

PART B COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING: GRAMMAR AND COMMUNICATIVE TASKS

3 Communicative Language Teaching 4 The Role and Practice of Grammar Teaching:

59 80

Designing Communicative Grammar Tasks for Teaching Japanese

5 Designing Communicative Tasks in Teaching Japanese

105

PART C CLASSROOM RESEARCH

6 The Experimental Methodology 7 A Classroom Experimental Study on the Effects of

135 167

Processing Instruction in the Acquisition of Japanese Conclusion Appendices References Index

188 191 201 211

Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank Bill Van Patten and James Lee for their support and encouragement over the years. What I have learned about second language acquisition and language teaching I very much own to them. I would also like to express my gratitude to all the Japanese postgraduate students in the Masters in Language Learning and Japanese Language Teaching at the University of Greenwich for helping me to reflect on many issues regarding the teaching of Japanese and assisting me in developing tasks and activities which I hope can be used for teaching Japanese more communicatively. I am also very grateful to the Institute of International Studies in London and the Japanese Foundation for allowing me to consult their libraries. A special thank to Mr. Zushi for his continuous support. I also own a special thank to Noriko Hikima, Kuri Komatsu and Sami for providing priceless advice, help and suggestions on developing Japanese language activities/tasks. I would also like to express my gratitude to the School of Humanities and the University for having supported my work since I joined this institution. Last but not least a big thank you to Bernadette, Grace and Francesco for their moral support and encouragement during my work. Finally I would like to thank all the staff at Continuum for their help in the production of this book. I particularly would like to thank Janet, Guardeep and Colleen.

Abbreviations ALM CLT CR EI L1 L2 MOI PI SIA SLA TI

Audio-lingual methodology  Communicative language teaching Consciousness raising Explicit instruction First language Second language Meaning-output instruction Processing Instruction Structured input activities Second language acquisition Traditional instruction