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

调查的主要目的是概述太平洋地区教育机构日语教学中信息技术设施的可用性和使用情况。这项调查是在八个国家/地区的教育机构进行的，这些国家/地区包括马绍尔群岛、密克罗尼西亚、巴布亚新几内亚、斐济、萨摩亚、塔希提岛（法属波利尼西亚）、新喀里多尼亚和夏威夷群岛。（后两个是我们今年新选择的研究领域，而其他两个是去年的研究领域。）调查结果显示，85%的院校拥有信息技术设施，其中54%的院校将这些设施用于日语教学。据调查，太平洋地区的很多教育机构缺乏可以使用日语的信息技术（It）环境。在日语可用的地方，计算机似乎主要用于日语教师的文字处理和网络搜索。学生对电脑的使用，在适用的情况下，仅限于非日语活动，如用英语研究日本文化。电脑的使用受到限制似乎是由于硬件的质量，例如互联网接入和维护的速度。调查还显示，教师缺乏知识和信心可能是充分利用现有设施的障碍。研究结果显示，太平洋地区教育机构在日语教学中使用资讯科技设施的情况尚不理想。促进与世界各地的日语教学机构使用互联网（例如，电子邮件、聊天和主页）进行信息交流，对未来太平洋地区教育机构使用资讯科技至关重要。

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.