The communicative teaching of Japanese as a foreign language

Abstract

This stu dy looks at communicative language . teaching for Japanese as a foreign language. It alms t o find some justification for the hypothesis that language system and language use are mutually compatible, and should be consistently integrated in communicative language teaching. Inventories, containing examples of such things as the "expressions II used by Japanese people, the kind of "situations" in which these expressions might be uttered, and so on, were prepared to be used as a basis for this study. These inventories roughly followed Wilkins I, (1976) system of function and semantico-grammatical categories as well as the model of van Ek (1976), and van Ek and Alexander (1977) for the teaching of European languages. Certain issues raised during the preparation of the inventories, which are relevant to communicative language teaching, are discussed. These issues are: 1) various types of responses, 2) the functions of the Japanese form V-te kudasai, 3) the notions and functions of the Japanese verbs aru and iru, and 4) "short routines". In the discussion dealing with these issues, the importance of the use of authentic language material and the integration of comprehension and production materials is pointed out. Based on these two points, the study demonstrates how, at least in the case of the issues investigated, language system and language use can be treated as mutually compatible in the communicative teaching of Japanese as a foreign language. Show more