Designing a Japanese Language Learning System that Recommends
Materials Depending on Learner’s Interests and Learning Stages
Akiko KAI
akai@st.gsis.kumamotou.ac.jp
Graduate School ofInstructional Systems,
Kumamoto University,
Japan

Junko NEMOTO
Ryuichi MATSUBA
akai@st.gsis.kumamotoakai@st.gsis.kumamotou.ac.jp
u.ac.jpGraduate School ofGraduate School ofInstructional Systems,
Instructional Systems,
Kumamoto University,
Kumamoto University,
Japan
Japan
Katsuaki SUZUKI
akai@st.gsis.kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Graduate School of Instructional Systems, Kumamoto University, Japan

ABSTRACTWe developed a recommendation system of Japanese language learning materials for learners
with relatively light motivation. The main features of this system are providing “Upper-Lowertasks”, and “adequate recommendation of language contact situations”. A formative evaluationsuggested that learners are probably able to learn Japanese with this system, but the validity ofrecommendation and clearness of system structure must be further examined.
Keywords:)Instructional design, motivation, recommendation system

INTRODUCTION
Learners can get motivation for learning when they find relevance or value of learning task to theirjob, and keep it with a feeling of satisfaction by addressing adequate level assignments (Deci, 1975;Keller, 1983; Pintrich, 1989).
Empirically speaking from the first author’s view as a teacher of Japanese language, there is few
useful e-learning materials of Japanese grammar that inspire learners to study it actively, because many ofthe materials let the learners to read the contents in numerical order, or to select completely in freeordered contents. It could decrease beginner's motivation.
In the past, leading learners of Japanese were foreign students with their own definite goals, such as
study of Japanese economics and/or technologies in Japan. However, a recent report of Japan Foundation(2008) shows decline of the number of students and decline in motivation.
We consider that the decline comes from the shift of purposes of Japanese language study from
“Utility-based tendencies” to “Knowledge-based tendencies,” such as “communication” and “learning
about manga, anime, etc.” (Kai et al., 2010). We named the learners with relatively light motivation as a“casual learners.” We have developed a module recommendation system, which can make the casual
learners more motivated. The purpose of this study was to take an expert review to evaluate the system.

A RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM
Situation-Centered Structure

As is shown in Figure 1, the system has two-layered structure, which contains many learning tasks.
They are upper (situational) tasks and lower (grammatical) tasks. In upper (situational) tasks, learners are
instructed to cope with certain situations by using appropriate Japanese expressions, thus they aresituation-centered. In lower (grammatical) tasks, which are 40 links to grammatical learning contents,
provides learners the knowledge of Japanese language as a tool in upper (situational) task. The learners

select a situation first, then work on grammatical learning. There are many-to-many relationships between
the upper and the lower (grammatical) tasks.

Supplemental Functions to Provide Appropriate Recommendations
Recommendation

Upper (situational) tasks contain many kinds of topics and situations to correspond to learners’
personal preferences. The more situational tasks can be offered in this system, the more appropriate tasksa learner can obtain. Katz and Assor (2006) pointed out that being able to make choices in learning wouldmotivate learners when the options meet the students' need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
They also argued that the choices should not be too complex (competence support), and are congruent
with the values of the students' culture (relatedness support). On the other hands, with too many choices,“overload may be bewilderment and high levels of anxiety and stress”, and “opportunities become sonumerous that we feel overwhelmed. Instead of feeling in control, we feel unable to cope (Schwartz, 2004,p.104).”
Therefore, we came up with the idea that our recommendation engine will pick up an upper(situational) task by analyzing similarities among users’ choices. We have adopted an open-source
collaborative filtering recommendation engine, called “Cicindela (2011).” as our base system.

Learning Controller
Each lower (grammatical) task has minimum prerequisites so that a learner cannot have an upper(situational) task contained a nonqualified lower (grammatical) task as a recommended candidate. We callthis mechanism a learning controller. Figure 1 shows an example of how the learning controller works.
Suppose the system received upper (situational) tasks #3, 4, 2, 1, 5 from the recommendation engine, thenthe system checks the prerequisites of these tasks. Tasks #2, 3 would be rejected as recommendations,because lower task #2, 3, 4 have not finished yet.

Figure 1. An Example of Learning Control

Flow of Learning

At the initial login, a learner is asked to answer a questionnaire about personal interests. Then, three
upper (situational) tasks are displayed (Figure 2-A). When one of them is chosen, then “my page” appears
as shown ou the right side of Figure 2.
On “my page” window, the chosen upper (situational) task appears at the top of the window. Thelearners can make sure current task anytime (Figure 2-B). In the middle of the window, unlearned lower(grammatical) tasks needed for the upper (situational) task are displayed (Figure 2-C). The learner can see
endorsers of what she can do with the grammar, like “let’s communicate your love to him,” instead of thename of grammatical item like “past perfect tense.” Clicking on one of the examples takes learners to thelearning contents. After getting all required lower (grammatical) tasks cleared, the learner go back to theupper (situational) task and finish it. Then, the learner is guided to choose a next upper (situational) task
(Figure 2-D).

At that time, the learner can obtain upper (situational) task candidates that have only finished lower(grammatical) tasks as prerequisites. It is because the recommended upper (situational) tasks can beconsidered to have relevance to the learner, it can promote transfer and retention of the learning. Also, iflearners can go directly to challenge a question of the upper (situational) task, they don’t have to waste
time to do lower (grammatical) tasks.

Figure 2. Screens of the System
If the system works as we expected, all displayed candidates meet the learner’s relatedness and are
not too difficult to learn. Learners would be able to choose tasks from candidates as they like. Moremotivated the learner becomes, the less drop out we expect with this system.

EVALUATION
For design and usability validity test to explore an improvement plan, we took an expert review froma reviewer who has a good background in Japanese teaching and distance learning. The reviewer had 10
years of Japanese teaching experiences various settings, including classrooms and distance learning(synchronous and asynchronous), both in groups and one-on-one. She also has experiences of using
Japanese textbooks that are widely used by Japanese instructors like “Minna no Nihongo” and “Genki”.

Evaluation Procedure
An evaluation test was conducted as follows:
1. Read an document about the intent and purpose of the system and instruction,
2. Operate three upper (situational) tasks and some lower (grammatical) tasks needed afteranswering a questionnaire about her interests,
3. Answer a questionnaire about usability, validity, and attractiveness,
4. Take an Interview.

Results

Table 1 shows the results of the questionnaire and an interview. The results of the review show thatthe system was acceptable in terms of its manipulation. No question was occurred about both concepts

and manipulation. She was also affirmative to the concept of recommendation mechanism. However, shealso pointed out some problems listed in Table 1. The problem includes understanding how the learning
controller works, results of recommendation, and maintaining learning motivation with the repeated same
pattern.
Table 1. Results of the questionnaire and interview
Question items
Response
Understandability of mechanism
Understandable only one has received a full explanation
Understandability of operation
Understandable only one has received a full explanation
Seems to be fun
Not so enjoyable
Want to use the system as an instructor Want to use when it will be improved
It was no burden to input
Questionnaire about interests
Question items looks to be for the Japanese.
Learners’ age and gender also need to be considered.
Familiarity decreased with the number of tasks.
First task: not so relevant, but it is needed for everyday
Familiarity ofuse.
recommended tasks
Second task: not so relevant
Third task: not so relevant
Example sentences and situations are
Satisfactory
easily to understand for learners
Concept of upper-lower structure of
It is a matter of learner’s preference.
tasks seems to be funInterview
 Repeating same task patterns may make learners get tired easily (lack of novelty).
 Concept of upper-lower task structure is hard to make sence (Because example sentences of lower
task has no relation to its upper task.)

CONCLUDING REMARKSAs the expert review shows, some improvements are needed to be done in the future. We will
improve the user interface, quantity of monitor data, and the content of instruction. We also survey theeffects and usability of the system by analyzing real data collected in future evaluation studies. Especially,
modifying the unclearness of “upper-lower task” structure is an urgent issue. In this version, we displayed“endorsers” (example of use, how to use the grammar) to both upper and lower (grammatical) tasks, andproviding lots of information, which made the reviewer confused. It may be better to show usage example
only to upper (situational) tasks. There is room for further study in determining the balance of dramatic
impact and clearness.
We will keep working toward practical use by upgrading and expanding this system such as
multilingualization and adding quantity of quizzes. Furthermore, we will attempt to develop anotherlanguage version, and application in other fundamental education at a university in the future.

REFERENCES
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theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
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The Japan Foundation. (2011). Survey Report on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 2009. Tokyo,The Japan Foundation.

Kai, A., Nemoto, J., Matsuba, R., Suzuki, K. (2010). Designing a Recommendation System of e-Learning
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