EVALUATION OF A VISUAL FEEDBACK TOOL FOR SPELLING ERRORS OF LEARNERS OF JAPANESE DURING TYPING

Abstract

Typing in Japanese is a difficult process for novice and intermediate learners of Japanese dueto the writing system of the Japanese language and its comparatively involved input method on akeyboard. Considering that spell checkers, which enable the user to check and correct their ownerrors and select the correct kanji word, are designed for native speakers, the learners of Japaneseas a foreign language (JFL) may not recognize their spelling errors and are thus unable to selfcorrect using this built-in tool.The present study addresses this problem and conducts an experiment to evaluate theeffectiveness of a visual feedback tool by its error recognition rate on the learners spelling errorswhen typing in Japanese. The participants were 46 beginner level JFL learners in a third semesterJapanese course, and the majority consist of native speakers of Chinese or English. Theparticipants participated in two experimental sessions. In both sessions, participants were audiorecorded while reading aloud a list of words in Japanese for pronunciation analysis and screenrecorded while typing the same list of Japanese words. These recordings are used to analyze thecharacteristics of error patterns in both pronunciation and typing. During the typing sessions, visualfeedback is provided to the participants via a customized dictionary tool when participants makea spelling error.The results show that regardless of the native language, the learners have difficulty on certainwords that include long vowels or double consonants. The recorded error patterns align with thefindings of previous studies (Hatasa, 2001; Nakazawa, 2003; Tsuchiya, 2000), and the visualfeedback showed an average error recognition rate of 76% of the participants’ spelling errors. Theparticipants also assessed the dictionary tool in terms of usability, and their responses indicate thatsuch tools are very useful during typing. The researcher concludes that using a visual feedbackdictionary tool is effective in recognizing the spelling errors of the learners when typing, and itincreases the learner’s awareness of spelling accuracy.