Japanese through Dialogues for Intermediate Learners [Kaiwano Nihongo] by Mizue Sasaki;Masami KadokuraThe Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Apr., 1997), pp. 78-79Published by: American Association of Teachers of JapaneseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489686 .

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78 I VOLUME 31, NUMBER I

PEDAGOGY REVIEWS BY QUESTIONNAIRE

This section summarizes questionnaire responses from panels of reviewers. I am grateful to Tomoko Iwai, Lisa Kobuke, Diane S. J. Lim, Emi Murayama, Yumiko Ohara, Scott Saft, and Misako Steverson for their

participation. I am responsible for any distortions that may have resulted from my attempts to synthesize the sometimes disparate views of the

panelists. T.J.V.

JAPANESE THROUGH DIALOGUES FOR INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS [KAIwANO NIHONGO], by Mizue Sasaki and Masami Kadokura. Tokyo: Japan Times, 1996. Pp. vii+192. Y2,060.

Japanese through Dialogues for Intermediate Learners (JDIL) presents Japanese conversations of the sort that might occur in everyday situations in

Japan, supplementing them with brief grammar explanations, simple grammar-check exercises, and occasional practice tasks. The three panelists disagreed about how natural-sounding the conversations are. One panelist noted that the dialogues are not contextualized, in spite of the fact that the authors stress the importance of context in their commentary.

The 28 lessons in JDIL are organized around grammar patterns rather than functions or situations, and two of the panelists singled out this feature as a weakness. Although the title specifies "intermediate learners," two

panelists pointed out that the grammar patterns covered inJDIL are introduced in the first year of most college programs. One describedJDIL as "a review of grammatical structures," and the other thought that it would be good as a "reference tool for students and instructors." The third panelist suggested that it might be most useful to businesspeople living in Japan because "most of the dialogues are between boss and worker, two co- workers, or husband and wife." JDIL has no index, but there are four

appendices providing (1) verb conjugation, (2) additional grammar notes, (3) a list of basic verbs, and (4) answers to the exercises.

One panelist described the content of the dialogues as "interesting" but warned that students will require additional information or explanation about some of the social, political, economic, and cultural topics that are

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JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF JAPANESE I 79

brought up. Another panelist was especially concerned about how the lack of cultural and sociological information might mislead students about the

appropriate circumstances of use for many of the sentences in the dialogues. The third panelist was troubled by stereotyping and commented specifically on the description of a male beautician as "woman-like" (p. 106) and on the

hackneyed collocations tanomoshikute otoko-rashii and yasashikute onna- rashii (p. 107).

EASY KANJI: A BASIC GUIDE TO WRITING. JAPANESE CHARACTERS, by Fujihiko Kaneda. Lincolnwood, IL: Passport Books, 1996. Pp. vii+204, $12.95.

Easy Kanji (EK) is intended as a handbook for students who are

beginning to learn to write kanji. The book covers a total of 500 kanji, and the main text is organized into seven-page sections, each section containing five kanji pages and two practice pages. Each kanji page introduces five

kanji sharing the same radical, and the practice pages give "compounds" (jukugo) containing the kanji introduced in that section. At the end of the book there are some reading exercises, which consist of isolated sentences written in kanji-kana-majiribun. There are also samples of letters, postcards and nengajd. As one panelist noted, since EKcontains no indexes, there is no provision for going from a pronunciation to a kanji.

One panelist commended EKfor the making the kanji large enough for a beginner to see them clearly, and another appreciated the thoroughness of its treatment of basic strokes and stroke order. All three panelists agreed, however, that EKhas very limited utility. One described it as adequate only for very basic knowledge, and another noted that it is not a serious

competitor to well-known reference books that cover many more kanji and

provide indexes for look-up. These two panelists thought that EKcould be useful as a text for self-teaching, but the third panelist disagreed, emphasizing that EKis unlikely to foster reading skill given the paucity of

jukugo and example sentences.

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