A Japanese Learning Support System Matching Individual Abilities

With the growing popularity of Japanese learning, a large number of learning support tools or systems have been developed to help Japanese learners in various situations. We have particularly noticed the increasing necessity of systems developed as web applications, most of which are free and easily accessed, and hence regarded to be the most significant resources for Japanese learners. However, noun of the existing studies has considered the difference in language ability among Japanese learners. Learning contents and instructional method in these systems usually remain unchanged at all times without taking account of individual variations while in some cases they are supposed to vary with the real language ability of each Japanese learner. In this paper, we have developed a web application to provide appropriate suggestions and different learning materials for each Japanese learner based on their individual Japanese abilities. Specifically, we divide the language ability into several elements, propose different methods to quantify each element, and generate feedbacks or training questions for the Japanese learners. Experimental results have partially shown the effectiveness of our methods.