By Karan Misra
Ever since Eunice mentioned in class that she would be working on a Japanese language learning website, I was excited at the prospect of actually being able to use the website because I was really interested in learning the Japanese language and I do not have the time or units to take a dedicated Japanese class this year. I believe that people like myself, who cannot fit a proper Japanese class into their schedule, will be one of the primary users of Tokoro. Tokoro is a very cleverly and professionally designed website for learning the Japanese language. It allows such users to pursue their aim of learning the language at their own pace, slowing down when they are bogged down by other, more important matters and picking up the pace when they have more free time.
From the get go, the home page clearly specifies the purpose of the website and also hosts a web log which lets the visitor know if any major changes have been made to the website since his or her last visit. The navigation bar is well-designed in that it's brief and does not present the user with too many options that could be potentially confusing.
Lessons
Tokoro takes an interesting approach to language learning. Most courses that teach languages do not pay a lot of emphasis to the cultural learning experience which I believe is very important in getting immersed in the language. The lessons in Tokoro are divided into 'language' and 'cultural', which allow the student to grasp the language and then, if the student so inclined, also dive into the cultural aspects such as learning how to cook Japanese food.
Going by the first lesson that was posted online, lessons might tend towards the content-heavy side and teach the student a lot of material in each lesson. The idea of having an online quiz to test the student's grasp of the vocabulary and grammar will prove to be a very useful tool in language learning and should also provide the student with an opportunity to use the newly learnt skills. The vocabulary lists provided for each lesson are extremely useful for students who come back to the website after a hiatus and need to review the vocabulary in order to reorient themselves with the language.
In addition, the interactive homework assignment in which the student records an audio clip and sends it to the instructor for correction should turn out to be one of the most popular features of the website as one of the most important aspects of language learning is to have a native speaker tell you how close you are to speaking like a native speaker. This will help prevent students from acquiring 'incorrect knowledge' wherein they learnt something that they thought was Japanese but they were using it or saying it incorrectly.
External Resources
Tokoro takes into account the fact that it cannot be the end-all resource for all Japanese knowledge and acts on this by providing the student with a number of extremely useful links to dictionaries and other online learning tools.
Suggestions
Lessons and Learning Material: While I was navigating Tokoro and trying to learn Japanese, one of the first things that I got confused about was the difference between the "Lessons" and "Learning Material" links in the navigation bar. I feel that they could be merged into one and called "Learning Material" which would then further branch into "Lessons" for the lessons.
Cultural Learning: I think it's very important for cultural learning to be incorporated into the program but I also feel that separating it out from the language learning removes it from the main learning path to such an extent that a student might not be inclined to go through the cultural lessons until he or she is well into the program. My recommendation in this case would be to combine the two in a way that the student learns both new vocabulary and grammar and also how and in which contexts to use it. For example, with the current cultural lesson on Japanese Foods, I believe, it could be part of a language lesson that taught the student words related with eating and cooking and then actually give the recipes and descriptions of food in Japanese. In this way, the student is forced to use their newly acquired skills to read actual, useful Japanese information which I think would be both interesting and very rewarding. And, by doing this, the student should also be able to see in what contexts certain patterns and words can be appropriately used.
Lesson Content: Going by Lesson 1, the lessons in Tokoro might lean towards 'large' sizes which might or might not be beneficial to the student. Personally, I believe that smaller lessons are better because they impart a sense of completion to the student more often and are a morale booster, similar to the extremely small chapters in Dan Brown novels. So, I would suggest, taking Lesson 1 as an example, to have separate lessons on teaching Hiragana and Katakana and to go more in-depth into the topics (issues such as why Japanese has three different character sets, etc.)
Vocabulary Lists: I feel that it would be a useful addition if you could click on a word in the vocabulary list to hear it spoken by a native speaker and also hear it used in a couple of sample sentences.
Website Design: Although the website is beautifully designed, I feel that the ~360 pixels tall header on every web page actually blocks the student from easily reaching the actionable information on the page. Considering the fact that browsers on most screens as of 2007 will have about 480 pixels of vertical space available at one time, I believe, that, on every other page except the home page, the header should be truncated to about 50 to 60 pixels tall such that the page-specific actionable information is easily visible.
Simulating Daily Rigor: The advantage of enrolling in a class as opposed to learning something online is the fact that the regularity of the classes, homework assignments and quizzes keeps the subject fresh in the student's mind and prevents it from fading away easily. I believe this will be an issue with a significant portion of the students who use Tokoro for learning Japanese because there is nothing forcing the student to be regular with lessons and quizzes or to keep practicing the language. Making lessons shorter and more focused might be one way to resolve this.
External Resources: Although the external resources mentioned are extremely useful, I feel students would be hesitant to try out many websites and that a brief description of each website would be very useful in encouraging students to visit these external resources.
Community: I believe it would be a wonderful addition to the website if it had a community section in which visitors could look up other students of the Japanese language by region and level of knowledge so that they might be able to practice speaking. Students could chat with each other using voice chat software such as Skype or meet in person if they feel comfortable. In fact, the Tokoro coordinators could divide students into pairs (or groups) and ask for recordings of conversations as homework assignments.
All in all, I believe that Tokoro is a most excellent website for learning Japanese and I would like to see it completed so that I can myself learn Japanese from it.
