Learning Basic Japanese Language Through Mobile Audio Learning Essay

Nowadays, education is not just all about writing in the blackboard and explaining afterwards, it needs to capture the enthusiasm of the students to be able to learn. Learning may be done in many ways, like seeing, hearing, and experiencing things first hand. Students are fun of reading books, watching and some are interested in grammar especially in learning foreign languages. ( http://homeworktips. about. com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle. tm) Learning foreign languages such as Japanese has become a trend because people travel a lot and go abroad to earn money or simply want to visit another country and learn something about its geography and culture and even watching movies, animes, reading books. The researcher’s choose the Japanese language to be used in the development of this research because considering that Japan is one of the leading countries in terms of technology efficiency and learning, their culture may have a big impact to be able to understand more and cope up with them, Considering also the possibility of increasing high paying jobs in Japan by big companies. Firms nowadays are deciding to cooperate with partners from other countries. These firms need good translators who will help them to communicate with their partners. As you can see, you need to learn another language to get a good job. This knowledge can help you in your life. Learning multiple languages will always serve to enhance your quality of life, and even if you never use that language in practical circumstances, you almost certainly will enjoy the time spent educating yourself. Language learning is unique in that you rarely have to spend much money to find a passionate instructor or fellow learner, and the adventure of understanding a new tongue is one experience you will not soon forget. (http://learn-german-review. toptenreviews. com/the-importance-of-learning-foreign-languages. html) Audio recordings use native speakers, and one’s strength is helping learners improve their accent. Some recordings have pauses for the learner to speak. Others are continuous so the learner speaks along with the recorded voice, similar to learning a song. Audio recordings for self-study use many of the methods used in classroom teaching, and have been produced on records, tapes, CDs, DVDs and websites. Most audio recordings teach words in the target language by using explanations in the learner’s own language. An alternative is to use sound effects to show meaning of words in the target language. The only language in such recordings is the target language, and they are comprehensible regardless of the learner’s native language. ( http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Language_eduation) One of the biggest advantages to listening to lots of Japanese, user’s actually learn how to speak it is getting nice and familiar with how Japanese should sound. User get a much better handle for pronunciation, accent, and tone than if users just went into it without any prior listening experience. Whether users realize it or not, their brain is subconsciously paying attention to how Japanese sounds. This makes it much easier for you to reproduce these sounds correctly when the time comes. Well, usually at least. This really helps out, especially by keeping from getting into any bad pronunciation habits. If users already know how it should sound, they’ll be much less likely to get used to pronouncing things incorrectly or ingraining users personal Japanese with a bad accent. ( http://www. tofugu. com/2012/07/02/how-to-learn-japanese-without-really-doing-anything/) A twist in learning such as visual learning, audio learning, in this generation, contributes a big impact as a learning aid. Over the past few decades, the use of audio as a format has great breadth and depth learning tool has been very efficient. Audio as a means there is great potential for its use in education. The diversity of activity that takes advantage of audio hasn’t changed much in many years. However in recent years there has been new exploration into ‘digital’ uses for audio, which were anticipating taking advantage of the potential that is unique to digital audio. The widespread popularity of audio is due, in the main, to its ubiquity in our culture and ease of use both from a listener’s perspective and more recently in the creation of audio. The tools have gotten easier to use and better documentation has lowered the entry barrier. Furthermore, affordable recording devices are readily available, particularly with most mobile phones now are able to record audio to an acceptable standard, giving the majority of people the means to create and use audio. ( http://www. jiscdigitalmedia. ac. uk/guide/using-audio-in-teaching-and-learning/ ) Traditionally, academic libraries provide us an access to the different text based materials that serve as a reference for our research, or even for the learners. But even though it provides a lot of resources, it takes a lot of time spent to look and browse each prospective book. Because of this, Southern College University and its staff tried to develop a project which involves the use of mobile technology for audio format. They tried to convert these different text based materials into audio format and into different languages, in order to speed up research. In just a click, you could already have the necessary data. Even though it is beneficial, in some ways, they tried to ask for some opinion. Some said words are too small to read the way it was read is not clear. Some of the necessary data are missing. Others said they still prefer to read the textual per se rather than using the audio format. Because of these drawbacks, the staff tried to improve and innovate this kind of project in order to accommodate the different comments and will give more benefits to the users. Audio format using mobile technology is really an effective way for learners, to expand their knowledge especially in foreign language. This will also help those disabled person especially the blinds that really rely on their hearing senses in order to be nurtured and develop their own capabilities. Wallin, M, Kelly, K & McGinley, A 2012, ‘Using mobile technology to deliver information in audio format: learning by listening’) Technology may give us a lot of benefits but it has a lot of limitations. We should be able to weigh every circumstances, whatever is more important and be able to change these limitations into a more beneficial and effective aspects. This study seeks to develop a mobile based application that would help the user learning basic Japanese language through the use of auditory learning because learning Japanese language is not that easy. Reading and visual learning is not enough, user’s need to have an extra means of learning. Audio learning helps users to learn the right pronunciation and accent. This study aims to develop a mobile based application that would help the user learn basic Japanese language with auditory learning to increase learning experience not just the basic form of reading, visual learning and pronouncing it but also helping the user to have better understand and have the right way of pronunciation of words. The researchers come up with these specific objectives, 1. ) To be able to promote another means, in order to develop learning aspect. 2. ) To be able to develop the comprehension of individuals in Japanese language in a faster way. 3. ) To determine the feasibility of this kind of technology as teaching aid. 4. ) To enable technology specifically this audio format be contribute to the growth of individual through Japanese language. Procedure To achieve certain objectives, the researchers should have the right approach. First objective is to be able to promote another means, in order to develop learning aspect, basically the key concept of technology is innovation and so the researcher’s came up with the idea to use audio format in order to improve the way learning is conducted, through this, education will be easier. This could be accomplished through the mobile based application which will be the end result of this project. The application will be the primary tool in order to conduct learning by converting the users input which is English words to Japanese language. The second objective is to be able to develop the comprehension of individuals in Japanese language in a faster way. Comprehension development is brought about by the person’s interest to learn and enrich his or her vocabulary. This could be possibly done in faster way and that is through audio format. Like the gadgets that were attached onto, with just a matter of click, users could learn in an easier way. The third objective is to determine the feasibility of this kind of technology as teaching aid. The researchers are challenged to find out the viability of using this technology in conducting learning. This will also assist us to know the possible drawbacks through opinions, imperfections to correct, problems that may arise and make some adjustments in order to improve and innovate it further for it to be more beneficial to people. The last objective is to enable technology specifically this audio format is contribute to the growth of individual through Japanese language. Nowadays, individuals are looking forward in enriching themselves in order to be competitive and to attain a wholesome growth. Some also has the need to learn and be able to speak different anguages because it is required by their respective jobs, and through the use of audio format, this would be a great help in achieving these kind of situation. When users are now exposing themselves repeatedly with the audio format, little by little, they are familiarizing themselves with how Japanese should sound, resulting to a much better handle on the proper pronunciation, accent and tone. They’ll be likely to get used to it and in turn be able to build vocabulary, improve speech, communication skills and generally comprehension.