1. DeKeyser reports that the fuzzy rules were learned better by
the implicit-inductive subjects than by the explicit-deductive
subjects, but he also notes that the results regarding the fuzzy
rules should be treated with caution, due to the small data set
and the lack of statistical testing.
2. "Comprehensible input" is defined by Krashen as input
containing i+1, where i is the acquirer's current level and i+1
is structure a bit beyond the current level.
3. Only the processing group was informed that language learners
often misinterpret NVN sequences (1993a, p. 232); the processing
group practiced OVS sentences but the traditional group did not
(1993b, p. 53); and so forth.
4. The processing instruction adopted the "meaning-form connection"
approach (Terrell, 1991), which encourages the learners to understand
the concepts and meanings underlying the grammatical forms, but
the traditional instruction followed a more mechanical, paradigmatic
presentation of grammatical forms.
5. Cadierno (1995) extended the study using Spanish past tense
verb morphology and obtained results similar to those in VanPatten
and Cadierno (1993a, 1993b).
6. According to Swain, "comprehensible output" means
"output that extends the linguistic repertoire of the learner
as he or she attempts to create precisely and appropriately the
meaning desired," (Swain, 1985, p. 252).
7. Krashen discusses the relative complexity of a target structure
in terms of formal and functional/conceptual complexity (1987,
pp. 97-98), so the term "complexity" in the present
paper includes both formal and functional/conceptual complexity
of a structure.
8. The description of the Japanese honorific system in this paper
is based on Clancy's (1985) study, "honorifics and late acquisition
of L1 Japanese", the in-group and out-group concepts are
from Jorden's textbook (1987), the honorific usage is provided
by Simon's grammar notes (1987) and Mizutani and Mizutani's textbook
(1977), and by discussions with Kyoko Suda (Instructor of Japanese,
University of San Francisco).
9. There is another regular, respectful verb form, "V-(r)areru,"
but this study focuses on the form "o + verbal stem
+ ni narimasu." The romanization used in this paper
is an adaptation of the Shin-kunrei-shiki 'New official system'
(Jorden, 1987).
10. The concepts of in-group and out-group also shift depending
on context. For example, when a speaker belongs to Company A
and talks to a person who belongs to Company B, the speaker uses
a humble form to describe not only his or her own action but also
the actions of other members in Company A (including the speaker's
superior) because all members in Company A are now members of
the speaker's in-group when speaking to a person in a different
company (out-group). Since the students in this study were still
at an elementary level and were introduced to Japanese honorifics
for the first time, the situations in which the students were
instructed to use honorifics in the program were mostly limited
to a school situation (in which a student talks to his or her
teacher or talks about the teacher with other people), or a company
situation (in which an office worker talks to his or her superior
or talks about the superior with his or her colleague). Examples
of out-group/in-group shift were not included in the program.
11. The student who obtained the highest score and the student who
obtained the second highest score on the mid-term exam were paired
and were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The same pairing
system was applied until the last two students (the students with
the two lowest scores) were paired and randomly assigned to one
of two groups.
12. The two-sample dependent t-test (the paired two-sample t-test)
was applied to examine whether there is a significant difference
between the input-focused group and the output-focused group in
their scores on the mid-term exam. See Glasnapp and Poggio (1985)
for a description of the t-test for correlated samples. The mean
score of the input-focused group on the mid-term exam was 86.9
(SD = 11.6) and that of the output-focused group was 88.2 (SD
= 9.3).
13. One might argue that since Korean has its own honorific system,
the student with a Korean background may have had an advantage
in learning Japanese honorifics. However, the Korean student
is included in the input-focused group in this study, so this
argument strengthens the result, since the output-group actually
performed better than the input-group. A statistical analysis
was also performed to check the results when the Korean student
(in the input-focused group) and the student paired with the Korean
student (in the output-focused group) were excluded from the study.
The results were still significant, favoring the output-focused
group.
14. In order to reduce the lexical load, the computer programs
employed only vocabulary that had been introduced before (except
for four nouns such as katyoo, 'section chief', butyoo,
'department chief', etc., and two verbs, yomimasu, 'read'
and hanasimasu, 'talk', which were new).
15. The input-focused program employs the multiple choice format
because it is typically used for comprehension exercises. However,
multiple choice exercises may not necessarily capture the pedagogical
benefits of all types of comprehension exercises. Some other
question formats (such as asking learners to translate the target
language into their first language by themselves) will be included
in a future study.
16. The input-focused program stores a feedback message corresponding
to each response to a multiple-choice question, so when the student
selects a number, the corresponding message is provided.
17. The Japanese word processor works in the following way: the
students type roman letters on the alphabetical keyboard and these
roman letters are converted to katakana, hiragana, and kanji.
(Katakana and hiragana represent Japanese syllables, so they
are phonetic descriptions. Katakana are used to write words borrowed
from English or other foreign languages. Hiragana are used mainly
to write particles and grammatical inflections in verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs. Kanji represent both sound and meaning. Japanese
sentences are normally written with a mixture of hiragana, katakana,
and kanji.) For homonymous words with the same romanization,
the students obtain a list of kanji for the word and are asked
to select the kanji that he/she thinks are appropriate.
18. The output-focused program analyzes the learner's response using
a pattern matching technique: the program stores correct words,
phrases, sentences, and anticipated errors for each question,
and checks whether these items are found in the learner's response.
(No parsing technique is involved in this study.) The program
also stores feedback messages corresponding to correct answers
and anticipated errors, so if the learner's response matches a
correct answer or an anticipated error, a corresponding error
message is provided. Anticipated errors include missing words/particles,
incorrect/incomplete verbal forms, and incorrect Japanese writing
systems.
19. Giving more exercises to the input-group also strengthens the
result if the output-group performs better than the input-group,
which is indeed the case.
20. Among 137 exercises, 41 exercises were of type 1, 45 of type
2, 35 of type 3, 8 of type 4, and 8 of type 5.
21. Among 130 additional comprehension exercises, 66 exercises were
of type 1, 22 were for auditory comprehension of spoken honorific
verbs (a combination of type 1 and type 5), 41 were for auditory
comprehension of spoken honorific sentences (a combination of
type 3 and type 5), and one was of type 4. The additional exercises
for the input-focused group were intended to review comprehension
of honorific verbal forms and to practice auditory comprehension
of honorific sentences. Consequently, type 1, type 3, and type
5 tasks were mostly added for the input-focused group.
22. The first computer session focused on the irregular respectful
forms and the irregular humble forms, the second computer session
included the regular respectful form "o + verbal stem
+ ni narimasu", the third computer session introduced
the regular humble form "o + verbal stem + simasu",
and the fourth session reviewed all kinds of honorific sentences
practiced in the previous sessions.
23. Different numbers of questions were drawn from the various question
types on the achievement test. It should be kept in mind, however,
that questions of different types could vary in the time and amount
of work required to complete them. In particular, time constraints
limited the number of type 4 questions that could be administered.
Development of a more principled measure is an important topic
for future study.
24. Type 3 production scores exhibit the largest difference between
the two groups on the achievement test, and the retention production
test included only type 3 tasks. The t-score might have been
lower if other types of tasks were included in the retention test.
25. When multiple t-tests are performed on a series of null hypotheses,
the probability of committing at least one type I error (i.e.,
the probability of mistakenly rejecting the null hypothesis) may
be higher than the significance level employed in each of the
tests. To achieve a significance level of alpha for the conjunction
of the null hypotheses, it suffices to divide the significance
level of each of the individual tests by the number of tests performed
(Galambos & Simonelli 1996). Accordingly, suppose we select
a significance level of 0.05 for the present study as a whole
and perform t-tests for the mid-term exam, the comprehension achievement
test, the production achievement test, the comprehension retention
test, the production retention test, and the oral conversation
test. In this case, the significance level of each test becomes
0.008 (0.05 divided by 6). Only the production achievement test
is significant at the 0.008 level. The tests that fail at this
corrected significance level may nonetheless be regarded as heuristic
indications for future study with a larger sample size.