A survey on the use of Japanese language contents in educational institutions in the Pacific region

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The main aim of the survey was to outline the current state of the availability and use of IT facilities for Japanese language teaching in educational institutions in the Pacific region. The survey was conducted at educational institutions in eight countries/areas, which induded Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Pa]au, Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti (French Polynesia), New Caledonia and the Hawaiian Islands. (The latter two have been newly selected to be our research areas this year, whereas the others have been on our list from last year.)The responses to the survey showed that 85% of the institutions had IT facilities, and 54% of those institutions were using the facilities for Japanese language teaching. It was revealed that many of the educational institutions in the Pacific region lacked IT environments where Japanese language could be used. Where Japanese was available, the computers seemed to be utilized mainly for word-processing and web search by Japanese language teachers. The use of the computers by students, where applicable, was limited to non-Japanese activities such as researching Japanese culture in English. The restricted use of the computers appeared to be attributed to the quality of hardware such as the speed of Internet access and maintenance. The survey also revealed that lack of knowledge and confidence on the part of the teachers could be a barrier to the full utilization of the available facilities.The findings suggest that the availability and use of IT facilities for Japanese language teaching in educational institutions in the Pacific region are not yet at a satisfactory level Promotion of information exchange using internet (e.g., email, chats and homepages) with Japanese-teaching institutions across the world would be critical to future IT use in the education institutions of the Pacific region.