Korea is one of the countries in the world that has the most number of Japanese learners and a place where Japanese education is active. However, when we look at the reality of Japanese education, there are many problems in the first step, which is Hi...
Korea is one of the countries in the world that has the most number of Japanese learners and a place where Japanese education is active. However, when we look at the reality of Japanese education, there are many problems in the first step, which is Hiragana education. It takes much time to learn Japanese language characters, and in most cases lessons are undertaken by memorizing and writing, so learners get bored in the beginning stages of the lessons and lose interest. Therefore, we thought that this research would be helpful in solving problems in terms of time and effectiveness if a new learning method of Hiragana education is implemented in Korea, and we proceeded to develop and apply the IS association method to Koreans who are learning Japanese. The IS association method has been introduced in different language speaking countries such as English speaking countries, Portugal, Germany, etc. and has shown to be effective.
This research has developed Hiragana picture cards that have added images and stories for the 46 Hiragana characters that were based on the ideas of high school students. And with the newly developed picture cards, we conducted experimental lessons to teach Hiragana on Busan primary, middle, and high school students who had no Japanese learning experience. The experimental lessons were 50 minutes long and focused on reading Hiragana, and after the lessons, after-lesson tests, surveys, and interviews of the high scoring subjects were undertaken. Afterwards, a Hiragana test was enforced one month later. Based on the Hiragana test and survey data, we conducted statistical analyses for the variables of education level of the learners, test scores, memory, enjoyment, grouped characters and non-grouped characters, and we also analyzed the interviews of the high-scoring subjects.
We reached the following conclusions based on the results of the research.
First, we found that the test scores positively correlated with the primary, middle, and high school students' education level. We found differences in learning ability based on the learners' education level, interest, and concentration levels so revisions in the picture cardsand changes in the introduction times of the characters should be implemented.
Second, we found a positive and very significantcorrelation with the degree that subjects recognized the characters to memorize easily and the total score. When we look at this relationship by education level, we found that the degree that primary school students recognized the characters to be memorized easily and the total score, we found a very statistically significant and strong positive correlation. However, for the middle and high school students, the correlation was weak and did not have statistical significance. For primary school students, we must strongly instill that the association method makes memorizing easy and make simple designs of the cards to obtain good results. On the other hand, for middle and high school students, we cannot posit a close relationship with the degree that they think it is easy to memorize and scores.
Third, when we look at the relationship between the degree that the learner feels enjoyment about the lesson and the total score, we found it to be significant but the correlation to be low. When we look at this relationship by education level, we found the relationship to be significant and positive for primary school students. However, for middle and high school students, we found the correlation between the degree of enjoyment and the total score to be low and nonsignificant. For primary school students, we should revise the cards and proceed with the lessons so that they emphasize fun stories and images for more effectiveness. However, for middle and high school students, we cannot posit a close relationship between the degree that the students feel enjoyment and the scores.
Fourth, we could not see a significant difference of average score between the grouped characters, for which we put much effort during the association method card development process, and the non-grouped characters in the association method, but we could find a distinct difference in the existing method. Especially in the high schools, where we undertook both existing method and association method experimental lessons, the score difference between the grouped and non-grouped was large for existing method, while the score difference between the grouped and non-grouped was small. As the grouped characters are similar in shape and difficult characters, they did not have a big difference with non-grouped characters. However, when we see that the difference between the average scores of grouped and non-grouped characters decreased in the association method when compared to existing method, we can confirm that grouping characters is meaningful work. Even though characters may not be similar in form, grouping can decreases the burden of memorizing, so grouping characters can be utilized more actively.
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