Motivation for Project Three

Projects One and Two indicated that cognitive and affective changes were observed when the participating learners of Japanese read unmodified and modified texts. Project Three was conducted in order to deepen insights into effects caused by text modification, using unmodified and modified texts which were actually

available on the market. That is, Project Three examined learners’ responses toward two Japanese literary originals and their graded reader (GR) versions.

If the efficacy of modified texts is proved in L2 reading instruction, such texts will find their main arena of contribution as GRs in extensive reading.

Therefore, it was pertinent to investigate whether or not similar phenomena to those observed in the preceding two projects would emerge when L2 Japanese learners read unmodified literary pieces and their GR versions. The following research question was investigated in Project Three.

How do learners of Japanese respond to unmodified Japanese literary pieces and their GR versions?

5.3.1 Aims of Project Three

The aims of Project Three are two-fold. First, it was hoped that the project would provide answers to the authenticity debate in the context of JFL. While Projects One and Two showed that the majority of the participating students comprehended

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modified texts better than unmodified texts and preferred them, whether or not these students truly engaged with modified texts better than unmodified texts was not demystified. In other words, the two preceding projects had not yet fully answered what type of text these learners of Japanese would authenticate.

Secondly, it was hoped that the data presented by fourteen learners of

Japanese would make context-specific contributions to discussions of the efficacy of modified texts such as GRs, extensive reading, and language learner literature in the context of JFL (see section 3.2 for language learner literature). “Language learner literature” is a concept that was promoted by Day and Bamford (1998). They assert that a literature of which intended audience is language learners is a genre of literature in its own right and such a literature hold “the integrity that marks all genuine writing: that is not a lesser version of something else but a fully realized, complete-in-itself act of communication between author and audience” (p. 64).

In the undeveloped JSL/JFL pedagogy, there has been little discussion concerning text modification, extensive reading, and language learner literature. The historical arguments in this line of scholarly discourse are predominantly based on what has been discussed in the context of ESL/EFL. Therefore, the findings of the current project are of importance in that they are context-specific in JFL.

5.3.2 A mixed methods study

Project Three took a more qualitative approach compared to Projects One and Two, since it examined affective aspects which could not be well examined by purely quantitative methods. However, this simplistic dichotomous explanation regarding the nature of research does not have much meaning. Overall, the current study consists of multiple projects and has the nature of mixed methods research:

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research in which both quantitative and qualitative stances are employed. Miles and Huberman (1994) remark in relation to mixed methods research as follows:

Entertain mixed models. We have sought to make a virtue of avoiding

polarization, polemics, and life at the extremes. Quantitative and qualitative inquiry can support and inform each other. Narratives and variable-driven analyses need to interpenetrate and inform each other. Realists, idealists, and critical theorists can do better by incorporating other ideas than by remaining pure. Think of it as hybrid vigour. (p. 310, italics in the original)

Dörnyei (2007, p. 44) mentions that “a straightforward way of describing mixed methods research is to define it as some sort of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods within a single research project.” Following this

description, each project in this study holds the nature of mixed methods research. Furthermore, if the overall study is seen as one research project, the current study is in the nature of mixed methods research. Having such mixed-approach

characteristics allows the current study to explore the authenticity debate and text modification issues in the context of JFL.

5.3.3 Participants

Fourteen learners of Japanese participated in Project Three. They were either university students of or graduates from a New Zealand university. The majority of them were either enrolled on Japanese language courses or completed the same courses where the participants of Projects One and Two were enrolled. Their proficiency levels range from lower intermediate to very-advanced. Two of them had passed level 1 of the former JLPT, one had passed level 2 and three had passed level 3. However, some of these students had taken the test a long time ago. The remaining students had not sat for the JLPT. Therefore, more than half of the participants’ current proficiency was unknown. The average age of the participants was 21 years old and their average length of Japanese studying was 6.6 years. The

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participants seemed to receive a limited L2 reading instruction. About half of the participants referred to their university lessons as the only reading instruction that they had received. In those lessons, they read passages contained in their course textbooks in class under the guidance of a teacher and reviewed passages at home. Two advanced participants answered that they had not received much reading instruction previously. Only one participant mentioned that she had received a type of strategy instruction how to read L2 texts: reading to get the gist of each paragraph. The participants read for fun in Japanese on average 1 to 2 hours per week with one participant did so for 5 to 6 hours per week. The majority of the participants said that they preferred speaking/listening learning to reading/writing learning. The two advanced participants who mentioned that they had not received reading instruction at school said that they liked speaking/listening learning and reading/writing

learning equally. One participant who was still developing said that he preferred reading/writing learning because he thought that he was better at it than at

speaking/listening. Kanji was viewed as the biggest obstacle in L2 Japanese by most of the participants, except for only one L1 Chinese participant. She said that

vocabulary was her biggest obstacle in L2 Japanese reading.

5.3.4 Actual procedures

Ethical and pre-task procedures

At the beginning of a research session, the researcher made an effort to create good rapport with each participant, which was an attitude consistently taken throughout the whole study (Projects One and Two) in order to ensure that a participant would feel at ease. A participant was first given a written information sheet which explained the current project. The researcher orally explained the

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the researcher asked him/her to read a consent form (See Appendix 11 for the

information sheet and the consent form used in this project). Only after ensuring that a participant accepted the content of the consent form, he/she signed it. As in the preceding projects, the ethical procedures were carefully conducted in order to guarantee that the participants’ autonomy would be totally maintained (The National Commission, 1979, See section 5.1.3 for detailed discussion about this issue). That is because the current researcher believes that the participants deserve respect for their significant contributions to the research literature and for their independence in terms of decision making.

Next, the participants answered a biodata questionnaire and took a level check test. (See section 5.1.2 for the level check test. Also, see Appendix 2 & 5 for the level check test and the biodata questionnaire used in this project. These are the same as those used in Project One. Therefore, a detailed explanation of them is not repeated here.) Some participants’ levels were known because they had sat the former JLPT. In that case, those participants did not take the level check test.

Actual tasks

In this project, the think-aloud procedure was employed, which is explained in section 5.3.5 in detail. Due to the unfamiliarity of this task, the participant was given a practice session. The instructions for the think-aloud task were similar to those found in the literature. Lomicka (1998, p. 46) instructed her participants “to ‘think aloud’ in English while working through the text...to think aloud whatever came to mind during their reading of the text.” Similarly, participants in the current project were asked to say whatever thoughts came up when they were reading a text. They were asked to read aloud the text so that the researcher later could trace which part they were reading.

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Unlike, Lomicka’s and some other studies, the researcher did not ask participants to refer to anything in particular. In Lomicka’s study, the participants were instructed “to vocalize which glosses they were using and justify their choice…and finally to voice their understanding of each line” (ibid., p.46). Oster (2001) also guided what the students were supposed to think-aloud by modelling the procedure. In contrast, the current project attempted to induce how the participants would react to a given text without giving them a pre-moulded framework.

Therefore, no particular implications regarding what the content of think-aloud protocols should be were given. This factor probably enhanced the validity of the project. That is to say, not guided in any way, their think-aloud protocols would reflect genuine spontaneous reader response which was what the current project was investigating.

After a practice think-aloud session, participants first conducted the think- aloud procedure, using the GR version of one of the two stories chosen: ‘Chuumon

no ooi ryooriten.’ (Its English title is ‘Restaurant with Many Orders.’) When the

participants stopped talking during the think-aloud procedure, the researcher encouraged them to continue ‘thinking-aloud’ in an unobtrusive way. Next, the participants summarized the content of the text and wrote a short commentary which indicated their understanding of and their impressions toward the text. Then they carried out the think-aloud procedure, using the original text of the same story.

On completion of the think-aloud procedure, the participants were asked to compare the two texts carefully. Two small segments from the two texts which describe the same scene/episode were placed next to each other on the sheet so that the participants could easily compare them. Due to time constraints, the whole part used for the think-aloud procedure could not be examined by the participants. The

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comparison procedures were not recorded during the sessions with the first couple of students. Instead, the first couple of students wrote down their comments. However, the researcher noticed that what the participants were saying but not writing down was rather informative. Thus, during the sessions with the later participants, the whole of all comparison procedures were recorded and transcribed afterwards.

As stated above, two stories were chosen for Part Two of Project Three. The second story is ‘Hashire Merosu’ (Its English title is ‘Run, Melos!’) by Osamu Dazai. The original and its GR version of ‘Hashire Merosu’ were used only in the sessions with higher-level participants. That is because the level of this GR version is one level higher than that of the other GR version used in the current project (‘Chuumon no ooi ryooriten’). At the same time, the content of the original of ‘Hashire Merosu’ is more demanding than that of the original of ‘Chuumon no ooi

ryooriten’ as the linguistic analyses of the four texts indicate in Table 5.7 (see

section 5.3.10). It was considered instructive to examine whether or not such higher- level participants would react to the two pairs of texts differently. The think-aloud task and the comparison procedure using ‘Hashire Merosu’ were not conducted as extensively as in the case of using ‘Chuumon no ooi ryooriten’ since the participants had conducted such procedures once with the first story by the time the second story was introduced, and it was anticipated that conducting another extensive procedure using a pair of seemingly more difficult texts would be too demanding for the participants. Therefore, these higher-level students were asked either to conduct a think-aloud task briefly, using the two texts of ‘Hashire Merosu,’or simply to compare the two texts with the help of the researcher. (The details of the two stories and the four texts used in the current project are presented in sections 5.3.9 & 5.3.10.)

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Figure 5.5 How all the participants conducted the tasks in Project Three

Exit Interview

At the end of an individual research session, an exit interview was conducted. The exit interview took the orientation of semi- to unstructured. This semi- to

unstructured exit interview played a significant role as a data gathering method in Project Three because of the exploratory nature of the project and its research questions. Comparing the two data gathering methods – questionnaires and interviews, Brown (2001) points out as follows:

The flexibility of interviews allows the interviewer to explore new avenues of opinion in ways that a questionnaire does not; thus interviews seem better suited to exploratory tasks. The personal nature of interviews may encourage interviewees to be more open and willing to express tentative or exploratory opinions, ideas, and speculation that would not come out on a questionnaire. The richness of interview data also leads to more possibilities in terms of exploring the issues involved. (p. 78)

This choice of the interview orientation, i.e., semi- to unstructured

orientation, also came from the practical advantages which the current researcher had, namely “a well-developed feeling for context and some understanding of the concerns of interviewees as a starting point” (McDonough & McDonough, 1997, p. 184), since the researcher had been in the educational institution where the current study was undertaken for over a decade.

Practice Session of the Think-aloud Task Think-aloud of the GR version of Chuumon no ooi ryooriten + Essay writing Think-aloud task, using the original of the same story

Text comparison procedure, using the two texts

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Although the typical unstructured interview does not have a strictly-written interview schedule, the researcher had several questions that needed to be asked to find out the participants’ reactions after their reading tasks. Those questions included:

 Do you find the original literary text demanding or manageable? Why?

 Do you find the original literary text fascinating or boring? Why?

 Do you find the GR version more interesting or boring compared to its original and/or reading materials which you see in your language textbooks? If so, in what way do you find so?

 Do you understand the GR version better than the original?

 Which version do you prefer, the original or the GR version? Why?

This “some kind of agenda” (McDonough & McDonough, 1997, p. 184) with which the researcher started the exit interview did not constrain the course of the dialogue between the participant and the researcher. Moreover, as the researcher conducted the exit interview with more participants, some significant questions were emerging, which guided the later interview sessions. Such emergent questions also deepened the researcher’s interpretation of data obtained from the two previous projects. Those emergent questions included:

 Do you believe that you will master Japanese reading?

 Do you believe that reading modified texts will lead you to the mastery of Japanese reading?

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The qualitative oriented direction that the current project took served to “provide rich insight into human behavior” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 106) and into human perception.

5.3.5 The think-aloud task

Project One employed an oral free-recall task which was suitable to examine the participants’ comprehension of texts. Project Three investigated the participants’ concurrent response to differently modified texts. In other words, Project Three examined how the participants reacted to the texts when they were reading them, rather than asking them to give information retrospectively. The think-aloud task was thought to be suitable for this purpose.

The think-aloud task, a type of verbal report, has been widely used in reading research literature since a few decades ago. As a popular method to elicit learners’ introspective data, this method “has had a chequered history” (McDonough & McDonough, 1997, p. 192). Nisbett and Wilson (1977) criticize this method for the following reasons:

 it interferes with the actual task such as silent reading

 it requires an experimenter’s presence which can influence a participant’s performance

 human beings are not necessarily capable of producing reliable reports about their own thoughts.

On the other hand, this task is valued as one of only a few methods which can illuminate what is actually happening inside learners’ minds. Ericsson and Simon (1987) are those who have supported the value of this method from its earliest days in the relevant literature. They assert that “subjects’ verbal reports on their thinking

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would appear to be a major source of information about detailed steps of thought processes” (p. 24). Also, they confirm that “the verbal report procedures preserve the sequences of states, and hence the cognitive processes should not change as a result of the additional instruction to verbalize” (ibid., p. 32).

Similarly, Afflerback and Johnston (1984, p. 320) emphasize the value of verbal reports: “Used appropriately, verbal reports offer a unique, if sometimes less than transparent, window for viewing cognitive processes.” They enumerate advantages of verbal reports:

 “under certain circumstances they provide veridical descriptions of cognitive processes which otherwise could only be investigated indirectly” (p. 308).

 “they allow access to the reasoning processes underlying higher level cognitive activity” (p. 308).

 “verbal reports allow an analysis of the affective components of reading processes” (p. 308).

These advantages of verbal reports suit the aim of Project Three. In particular, the last point suggested by Afflerback and Johnston (1984) above is of great

relevance. If obtained verbal report data successfully indicate how learners’ affective factors change by text modification, such findings will have important pedagogical implications.

Among various types of verbal reports, the think-aloud task was specifically chosen in order to investigate how the participants responded to the two texts in the current project. Most importantly, the data provided by the think-aloud task

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of actual text features. Such data, when rich in nature, may illustrate a function of the text-reader interaction suggested by Widdowson (1979).

5.3.6 The summary and commentary task

After the participants finished the think-aloud task with the GR version of

Chuumon no ooi ryooriten, they carried out the summary task in English which

would demonstrate what type of mental representation they had created from the GR version. Initially, it was planned that half of the participants would summarize the original text. However, the first few students’ think-aloud procedures indicated that the content of the original text would be too demanding for the majority of the current participants to carry out the task. As later sections report, the content of the original of Chuumon no ooi ryooriten is beyond what the current participants

comprehended without external help such as a dictionary and/or a teacher’s guidance. Therefore, the initial plan was dropped and instead all the participants summarized