Kanji of English

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Kanji of English

• Results from an
• experimental TOEIC Class
• Instructor Tim Chambers

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What is Kanji of English

• Kanji of English was conceived as a hybrid
  lexicon intended to intermediate the phonological
  Western writing system and the ideographic
  Oriental writing system, thus facilitating
  language learning.
• Kanji of English are Kanji equivalents of Latin
  and Greek morphemes. Words derived from Latin and
  Greek are rewritten in Kanji of English to be
  more readable to students of Western Languages.

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What are the goals of Kanji of English?

• To enable students
• o To perceive words analytically.
• o To recognize roots and affixes and negotiate
  the affix patterns.
• o To connect the roots and affixes to dictionary
  definitions.
• o To recognize and use the parts of speech.
• o To understand prepositional prefixes.
• o To recognize L1 equivalents through the
  intermediating language.
• o To improve reading skill and speed in L2.

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Why Kanji of English?

• Because only English majors on the linguistics
  track are taught to read this important
  vocabulary.
• Many people without this training nonetheless
  need the vocabulary for the TOEIC, TOEFL, Eiken
  1, academic or professional purposes.

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The Experiment

• Kanji of English was tested on an introductory
  TOEIC class at Aichi Shukutoku University.
• The students were first year social studies
  majors.
• The test consisted of 600 words from Kiyomi
  Chujos TOEIC vocabulary list.
• It was constituted from some 120 Latin morphemes.

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The Medium

• Word pairs are loaded on game software that
  enables the students to perform an analysis and
  match the corresponding pairs.
• Each lesson consists of approximately 50 new
  vocabulary words. Many are related in meaning
  which eases the students burden somewhat. But
  there is more to learn than just the meaning.

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The Lesson
A Typical Lesson is 10 screens
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How did the experiment work?

• Students were given half an hour of class time to
  play the games and learn the words.
• The games were followed by a brief quiz that
  tested 80 of the roots, twenty percent of the
  words, and most of the grammar functions.
• There was no possibility of a control group.

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Quiz for Week One
Which of the following indicate a noun?
-ive -ion -ate -al -anc -ity -ly
-ment -ism None of the above if the root
is a noun. Which of the following indicate a
verb? -ive -ion -ate -al en-
-able -ize -ly -ify None of the
above if the root is a verb. Which of the
following indicate an adjective? -ive
-ion -ed -ate -al -en -ous
-arian -able None of the above if the root
is a noun.
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Results for Week One
Above are students scores for parts A (blue) B
(red). Below is answer distribution for part B.
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Quiz for Week Three
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Results for Lesson Three
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Quiz for Week Four Parts A B
Which of the following indicate a noun?
-ive -ion -ate -al -anc -ity -ly
-ment -ism None of the above if the root
is a noun
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Results for Week Four
Above are students scores for parts A (blue) B
(red). Below is answer distribution for part B.
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Comment on Week Four

• Week fours quiz was the first time the students
  were tested directly from Kanji of English to
  Japanese.
• The attitude towards Kanji of English improved
  considerably following Lesson Four.

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Quiz for Week Five, Parts One Two
1. Match the following
2. Which of the following indicate a verb?
-ive -ion -ate -al en- -able
-ize -ly -ify None of the above if the
root is a verb.
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Quiz for Week Five, Parts Three and Four

• 3. ............ for huge profits is always a
  risky business.
• Speculate Speculator
  Speculation Speculative
• 4. As a junior partner, she is rarely involved in
  the ....... administration of the firm.
• intern internalize internal
  internality
• 5. She ............ in computer systems analysis.
• specialization specializes
  specialist speciality
• 6. The assistant manager was recently ..........
  as the new supervisor.
• designated designed
  designative designation
• 7. The last .......... has submitted a bid.
• contractor contractive
  contract contraction

8. The questions below refer to the choices you
made in questions three - seven.
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Results for Week Five
Twelve Students got passing grades on Part A.
What is most interesting is how well the
students did on Parts Three and Four. Normally,
these questions are difficult even for college
graduates.
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Quiz for Week Six
Which of the following indicate an adjective?
-ive -ion -ed -ate -al -en
-ous -arian -able None of the above if
the root is a noun.
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Results for Week Six
Above are students scores for parts A (blue) B
(red). Below is answer distribution for part B.
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Quiz for Week Seven
discourage is a(n)... diverse is a(n)...
division is a(n)... domestic is a(n)...
economic is a(n)... efficiency is
a(n)... eligible is a(n)... emergency is
a(n)... encourage is a(n)... estimation is
a(n)... noun ?? verb ?? adjective ???
adverb ??
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Results for Week Seven
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Quiz for Week Eight
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Results for Week Eight
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Quiz for Week Nine
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Results for Week Nine
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Week Ten
Watching the students do this one was
interesting. A-J are dictionary definitions. The
students sat at their computers with with a
finger in the air drawing Kanji. When they found
enough matching elements they would then make
their choice.
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Results for Week Ten
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Week Eleven
The prefixes tested here were spread throughout
the lessons. There was no one lesson that
covered them all.
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Week Eleven Results
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Quiz for Week 12
It should be noted that Week Twelves quiz was
given as part of the final exam. Students were
told to do it at home and did not. Thus the only
preparation time they had were the few minutes,
if any, they took before class time.
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Results for Week Twelve
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Final Exam

• The final exam consisted of three types of
  questions
• Part A - Kanji of English to Japanese. The words
  and roots used for this part of the exam were
  totally new to the students. It was meant to test
  how well the students could understand Kanglish
  on its own.
• Part B - English to Japanese - The words tested
  here contained elements the students had studied
  throughout the course, but in words the students
  had not studied. It was the most challenging test
  given.
• Part C - A test of the students ability to
  distinguish parts of speech.

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Final Exam Parts A B
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Final Exam, Part C
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Results of Final Examination
Blue is Part A, Red is Part B, Yellow is Part C
13/17 students had acceptable results on Part A.
I believe this demonstrates that the method has
some merit and warrants further study. 7/17
students had acceptable results on Part B, but
more needs to be known about those students
prior knowledge. 12/17 students had acceptable
results on part C. As most students at this level
cannot distinguish the parts of speech, that is
a fairly significant result.