| Abstract: |
The aim of this paper is to evaluate and compare electronic resources for the Japanese language in terms of their usability for Japanese language learners. The paper focuses on a computer assisted language learning (CALL) system developed to support learners in reading Japanese language texts, the Japanese Language Reading Tutorial System "Reading Tutor", and the e-dictionary server "WWWDJDIC" with its extended functions. Each system was introduced and used in the classroom for various teacher-planned reading and comprehension tasks. The paper outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the systems that were identified during classroom usage by university students enrolled on a Japanese language course, and discusses the results of a survey conducted in order to explore student opinion, preferences and usage habits regarding the resources. In addition, the paper also notes and briefly addresses some other e-dictionaries, e-resources and tools covered in the survey, such as the pop-up support dictionary tools "Rikai-chan", "Perapera-kun", and "Popjisyo", the Japanese Reading System for Multi-Lingual Environments
"Asunaro", and the Writing Support System "Natsume", as well as the corpus query system "Sketch Engine" with "Word Sketches", which automatically extracts collocational information for the Japanese language. |