Students' Learning Autonomy: A Case Study of Undergraduate Course of Japanese Language Program

Abstract

This research aimed to determine the impact of the effectiveness in the application of an independent method of teaching students on their progress in achieving a certain level of Japanese. The study used key methods that implied the experimental involvement of 60 3rd- and 4th-year American and Chinese students with the N3 and N2 levels of Japanese to pass a simplified version of the international JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) after applying the autonomy learning methodology. The analysis and processing of the experimental exam results were performed using the Microsoft Excel program and derivation of the average statistical percentage of the number of points scored at each stage of the N3 and N2 exams. The results of the study and the test scores led to the conclusion that the most difficult tasks for American students are those in writing and reading. On the other hand, Chinese students have difficulties in listening and speaking Japanese over linguistic phonetic differences and complex grammar compared to Chinese. Referring to the N2 group of American and Chinese students, their scores are somewhat equal due to the total complexity of this level, which requires utmost care for all four skills of foreign language learning. The present findings can serve as auxiliary material for the educational sphere in terms of an individual approach in autonomy learning to more effectively study Japanese and obtain positive results when passing the JLPT test.

Keywords: Autonomy learning; Collaborative learning; Covid-19; Hatsuon (pronunciation); Japanese language proficiency test; Kanji.