日本語文法の習得と教材の役割― 助詞「は」と「が」を事例に― [Japanese grammar acquisition and the role of the textbooks – from the perspective of the particles wa and ga]

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role of the teaching materials for grammar acquisition in Japanese. One of the most difficult aspects in the acquisition of grammar for learners is distinguishing among the grammatical patterns that have similar functions. However, most of the textbooks created mainly in Japan do not provide sufficient information on how to distinguish similar grammatical patterns. The problem is that such textbooks are designed for the direct method of teaching multilingual classes and have limitations on the information they can present. Consequently, it is important to provide additional opportunities to learners by creating supplementary materials to fill in the areas that the main texts cannot cover. The discussion in this paper will be exemplified using the particles wa and ga. The arguments for the difficulties in the distinction between wa and ga are based on misuse examples extracted from the learners’ corpora. The reason for dealing with wa and ga is that, although these particles are taught at the earliest stage of education, most of the learners have difficulties with the distinction between these particles, and even advanced learners often misuse them. Again, the descriptions of the functions of these two particles in the existing textbooks are inconsistent and vary from book to book. Finally, this paper introduces an online tool created to support the study of grammar and displays the description of wa and ga in it.