A Study on Development of CAI Program to Facilitate Understanding of Question Sentences in Arithmetic Problems for Children Whose First Languages are not Japanese.

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Many prefectures and cities assign special instructors to elementary school pupils who do not speak Japanese as the native language. Few instructors, however, are able to communicate with the children in their own languages.This research project studies how children who are not native speakers of Japanese understand question sentences of elementary school arithmetic problems. We have tested the subjects' comprehension by presenting question sentences in print and in recording using a computer program which we have developed. We have found that many Brazilian children who have been in Japan for a considerable length of time still have trouble understanding question sentences in arithmetic. To find out whether their difficulty lies in the ability to carry out simple calculations, or in understanding Japanese sentences or in handling abstract concepts, we used a computer program which presents problems both in Japanese and in Portuguese, and both in print and in recording. The subjects we … More re asked to choose the correct answer for each question from a set of pictures or equations that match the situation described.The test has been given to non-Brazilian and native Japanese volunteers as well as to Brazilian subjects. We have found that non-native subjects vary more in response time and accuracy than native Japanese subjects. It was also found that they do not necessarily score higher in their native language. At this stage, we consider it necessary to collate more data before we can draw a conclusion. The collection of the testing data has been slow in coming, mainly because the program we have developed needs to be installed on each computer that is to be used. This is due to the fact that not many elementary schools have sufficient Internet facility for a network-based testing environment. The program, however, has proved to be popular among the subjects, and the subjects can be expected to retain attention focus longer and to have stronger motivations in solving the questions than on a traditional paper-and-pencil test. In a further research, we plan to expand the database of the problem sets and to modify the program so that it can be used in languages other than Japanese and Portuguese. Less