The application and teaching evaluation of Japanese films and TV series corpus in JFL classroom

Abstract

Purpose The aim of this paper is to solve the problem of lack of real context in JFL (Japanese as Foreign Language) classroom with video corpus-based teaching. It also offers reference for the development of video corpus. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed an intelligent Japanese online video corpus, namely the JV Finder, which is a corpus of Japanese films and TV series. The authors applied the JV Finder to JFL teaching to solve the problem of lack of real context and designed several teaching experiments to validate its benefits. Findings The results of teaching experiments show that the video corpus-based teaching significantly improves the learning effect. The JV Finder can help students memorize vocabularies and understand the meaning of new vocabularies in a better way. Research limitations/implications There are still some differences in language context between real life and films, which cannot fully reflect the state of native speaker in real life. Meanwhile, the number of students participating in this experiment is relatively small, so the universality of the result need further study. Practical implications This study combined linguistics with software engineering to solve the problem of lack of real context. Video corpus-based teaching not only can be used in Japanese teaching field but also provide value for other foreign language teaching. Social implications The JV Finder has obtained Chinese national patent license (patent no. 20131118). The video corpus (the JV Finder) has a far-reaching impact on JFL teaching. Originality/value This paper provides an intelligent Japanese online video corpus. It is applied to JFL teaching to solve the problem of lack of real context. The findings show that the video corpus can significantly improve the effectiveness of Japanese learning.