SenseiOnline presents 30th Benkyoukai (Study Forum)
Tetsuo Harada "The Acquisition of Geminates by English-Speaking Children in a Japanese Immersion Program"

February 24th (Monday), 2003 at 1:00pm US Pacific Standard Time
February 24th (Monday) 3pm CST, 4pm EST, 11am Hawaii, 9pm GMT, 9pm London, February 25th (Tuesday) 6am Japan, 8am Sydney, 10am New Zealand, if this calculation is correct. To be sure, please go to Timezone Converter

Featured speaker

Tetsuo Harada

University of Oregon

Tetsuo Harada is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Oregon, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Japanese applied linguistics and Japanese language courses. While at UCLA and in Japan, he taught intermediate and advanced ESL courses and all levels of Japanese. His research interests include second language phonetics and phonology, L2 learning and teaching, listening in a second language, immersion education, and Japanese language teaching.

Short description of the presentation

This study acoustically analyzed the production of geminates (/pp, tt, kk/) in Japanese by English-speaking children in grades 1, 3, and 5 (N=19) in a Japanese immersion program. In addition, 52 native speakers of Japanese rated the contrast between single and geminate consonants produced by the immersion children.

For single and geminate consonants, Han (1992) found that the duration of L1 English speakersÅf Japanese geminates is shorter than that of Japanese monolinguals. However, my results show that both the immersion childrenÅfs geminates and their singletons were longer than those of the Japanese monolinguals. In addition, the immersion childrenÅfs mean ratio for singletons to geminates was smaller than that of the monolinguals.

The accent ratings by the Japanese native speakers suggest that the immersion children retain a noticeable L1 accent and there is no statistical difference in the scores of accentedness across the grade levels. Moreover, the degree of perceived accentedness for all the immersion children correlated fairly highly with their ratio of singletons to geminates (r = 0.773, p < 0.0001). This suggests that the ratio of singletons to geminates is a good measure of the acquisition of the phonemic contrast between them.

What is going to happen?

Harada sensei's paper is at
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tharada/SenseiOnline.htm

So read the paper above and go to TAPPED IN. There, you will be able to discuss this topic with Joseph sensei and others from around the world. TAPPED IN is open to everybody and the presentation will be done in English.

Where to go

This event is open to anybody who is interested in the topic. It will be at After School Online Room at http://www.tappedin.org

Instructions to log in as a guest and get to the After School Online Room:
1. Go to http://www.tappedin.org
2. Click the "Guest Login" Button on the TAPPED IN home page
3. Be patient while loading
4. When prompted in the bottom window, erase the text next to the word SAY, and type your name and hit return.
5. When loading is done, you will be in the Reception area.
6. To talk, type in the message in the window next to the word SAY. Then press the SEND button or the ENTER key
7. In order to get to After School Online room, you can click on After School Online in the map.

Download and print this document. It will explain the interface really well. http://www.tappedin.sri.com/info/docs/TAPestry3.pdf

System Requirements

TAPPED IN uses Java applet called TAPestry. It requires Java, frames and JavaScript which some older browsers do not support well. If you have problems, please read TAPPED IN's Frequently Asked Questions page.

If you have problems connecting from a school computer, you may be behind firewall. Please read Firewall explanation in FAQ..

If you still need help, please mail TAPPED IN staff at contactus@tappedin.org

About TAPPED IN

TAPPED IN (http://www.tappedin.org) is an online conference center hosting an international community of education professionals. Teachers, librarians, professional development staff, researchers and students engage in professional development programs and informal collaborative activities with colleagues and attend online dicussions and classes.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Manager of SenseiOnline at senseionline-owner@yahoogroups.com

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