Learning Kanji: Perceptions and Strategies

Lecture Information:
Japanese language learners often consider kanji (i.e., Chinese characters borrowed into Japanese) one of the most challenging parts of the learning process. Challenges in kanji learning include difficulty in retention, multiple readings of a single character, visual similarity, the polysemic nature of kanji words, the large number of characters to learn, and visual complexity.

In her presentation, Prof. Mori will examine Japanese language students’ beliefs about kanji and kanji learning, and their relationship to the ability to learn novel kanji words. A questionnaire survey identified six attitudes toward kanji represented by the following beliefs: (a) kanji is fun; (b) kanji is difficult; (c) kanji has cultural value; (d) kanji has a future; (e) kanji is useful; and (f) kanji learning requires special abilities. It also identified the following six kanji learning strategies: (a) morphological analysis; (b) rote memorization; (c) context-based strategies; (d) associational strategies; (e) metacognitive strategies (i.e., strategies used to increase awareness of one’s own learning); and (f) helplessness.

Further analysis indicated that students considered rote memorization most effective and metacognitive strategies least effective. An examination of the relationship between learner perceptions and learners’ performance on tests, however, revealed that belief in the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies accounted for 14-16% of the variance of success in compositional analysis. Based on these research findings, Prof. Mori will argue that (a) Japanese language students should reflect upon their own kanji learning from various perspectives, (b) students’ task-specific beliefs have a significant impact on their achievement in a given task, and that (c) metacognitive awareness plays an important role in dealing with learning challenges.

This lecture is offered as the Sixth Shirato Lecture on Japanese Language.

Lecturer Information:
Yoshiko Mori is Associate Professor and Director of the Japanese Language Program in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Georgetown University. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She specializes in second-language learning and instruction from a psycholinguistics perspective. Her research interests include second-language kanji learning and instruction, the role of metacognitive awareness in vocabulary learning, student perceptions, individual differences in language learning, and heritage language learning. Her work has been published in Reading Research Quarterly, Language Learning, Modern Language Journal, Applied Psycholinguistics, and Foreign Language Annals. At Georgetown, Dr. Mori teaches advanced Japanese reading, Japanese linguistics, and the acquisition of Japanese as a second language. She has also taught courses in second language acquisition and teaching methodology in the Japanese Pedagogy MA program at Columbia University.