Learning Our Way

Abstract

Software is regarded as a promising means to innovate education, particularly in light of a widely occurring transition from instructor-centered to student-centered instructional approaches. However, with a variously understood notion of student-centeredness and disjointed efforts to study the effects of technology in education, evaluating how technology may help students study a language in their preferred ways to chase their individual interests has remained subject to rigorous inquiry. This thesis takes the study of Japanese as a foreign language (L2) in Dutch higher education as a case in point to investigate through grounded design how technology can facilitate student-personalized learning. To this end, literature reviews were conducted on the topics of human learning, technology in language education, and L2 Japanese-language education. A focus group study was moreover performed with three university instructors of L2 Japanese, as well as an evaluation of a software prototype, Kamo, with students of L2 Japanese, to situate the theoretical findings in practice. Strong potentials were identified for software to arrange more individually attuned study materials and help students find peers with similar interests, under the condition that software complements rather than substitutes face-to-face instruction. A key requirement for personalizing technology to effectively integrate into language education is that the curriculum is adjusted to provide sufficient time and technical support to find and use adequate tools. Future research is recommended to take a larger-scale approach so as to prevent the recurring issue of non-generalizable outcomes and to define joint study objectives that can utilize the ever-changing technological landscape in a sustainable way.