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Hiragana introduction
by Maki Yamada
 | Maki Yamada is a teacher of Japanese at Kapiti College and is the recipient of the NZALT Professional Development Award for 2005. As part of her MA in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, Maki investigated the issue of hiragana introduction in Year 9 Japanese language classes. The dissertation is too long to publish here, but below you can read the abstract of her dissertation. |
This study examined the effective order of hiragana introduction to Year 9 Japanese language classes in New Zealand. The traditional method which follows the order of the hiragana syllabary table (the syllabary method) and a method which introduces hiragana as components of words and sentences (the sentence method) were tried in order to discover which method promotes better hiragana reading and writing ability. Table completion, reading, and writing tests, were used to assess the effectiveness of each method.
The results show that there was no statistical difference between the two methods on test scores, however, hiragana table completion ability did not necessary predict hiragana reading or writing ability. Furthermore, qualitative data revealed that the students' resistance during the transitional stage from romaji to hiragana was considerable and that the majority of difficulties observed were a result of the characteristics of the syllabary method. Because the deficiencies of the syllabary method exceeded those of the sentence method, hiragana instruction according to the sentence method was interpreted as being preferable to the syllabary method of hiragana instruction for Year 9 Japanese language classes.
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