Tsuyoshi Usagawa

Assessing Lecturers and Students’ Readiness for E-learning: A preliminary study at National University in North Sulawesi Indonesia

In recent years, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development has spurred the growth of the Internet and networked technologies, influencing lifestyles, businesses, training and work processes including in the educational area. Educational institutions use ICT as a tool for teaching and learning in a number of ways including but not limited to Internet-based content delivery and visualization. This research was assessing lecturers and student’s readiness for using e-learning at the University of Sam Ratulangi (UNSRAT) in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. A set of questionnaires, which consists of 40 items was distributed to lecturers as well as 30 items to students, 207 respondents in total. From the questionnaire results, both subject’s readiness for e-learning was evaluated. The outcome of the research can be seen as a description of lecturers and student’s experience and can offer a recommendation on how to design e-learning based courses. Furthermore, the results of this study could assess university student’s capability in using e-learning under the circumstances at UNSRAT.

The perception of morae in long vowels: comparison among Japanese, Korean and English speakers

There are three kinds of Tokushuhaku (the specific timing morae) in the Japanese language such as the moraic nasal, the non-nasal consonant and the long vowel. Even though Japanese native speakers can perceive them perfectly, it is difficult for Japanese learners from abroad to perceive and produce them. To make it more efficient for Japanese learners to acquire them, one needs to investigate how Japanese native speakers perceive Tokushuhaku. The study examines the perception of a more or morae of Japanese language specifically in the long vowel. Fujisaki and Sugito (1977) have assumed that duration contrasts alone are involved in perception. However, we hypothesize that the accentual change in the midst of a long vowel would mark the boundary between the morae and would affect the perception of morae by native speakers of standard Japanese. Based on the hypothesis three kinds of perception tests with computer-edited sound stimuli were given to native Japanese, Korean and English speakers. The results of these tests suggest that native Japanese speakers count the number of morae not only by the duration of vowels, but also by the accentual change which indicates the boundary between morae. On the other hand, non-native speakers count the number of morae only by the duration of vowels.