EVALUATION OF A VISUAL FEEDBACK TOOL FOR SPELLING ERRORS OF LEARNERS OF JAPANESE DURING TYPING

Typing in Japanese is a difficult process for novice and intermediate learners of Japanese due

to the writing system of the Japanese language and its comparatively involved input method on a

keyboard. Considering that spell checkers, which enable the user to check and correct their own

errors and select the correct kanji word, are designed for native speakers, the learners of Japanese

as a foreign language (JFL) may not recognize their spelling errors and are thus unable to selfcorrect using this built-in tool.

The present study addresses this problem and conducts an experiment to evaluate the

effectiveness of a visual feedback tool by its error recognition rate on the learners spelling errors

when typing in Japanese. The participants were 46 beginner level JFL learners in a third semester

Japanese course, and the majority consist of native speakers of Chinese or English. The

participants participated in two experimental sessions. In both sessions, participants were audio

recorded while reading aloud a list of words in Japanese for pronunciation analysis and screen

recorded while typing the same list of Japanese words. These recordings are used to analyze the

characteristics of error patterns in both pronunciation and typing. During the typing sessions, visual

feedback is provided to the participants via a customized dictionary tool when participants make

a spelling error.

The results show that regardless of the native language, the learners have difficulty on certain

words that include long vowels or double consonants. The recorded error patterns align with the

findings of previous studies (Hatasa, 2001; Nakazawa, 2003; Tsuchiya, 2000), and the visual

feedback showed an average error recognition rate of 76% of the participants’ spelling errors. The

participants also assessed the dictionary tool in terms of usability, and their responses indicate that

such tools are very useful during typing. The researcher concludes that using a visual feedback

dictionary tool is effective in recognizing the spelling errors of the learners when typing, and it

increases the learner’s awareness of spelling accuracy.