SBIR-STTR Award

Our goal is to produce a software package to teach the writing of Japanese, based on recently developed technology for pen-based computers. The Phase I research will determine the technical feasibility and will produce the design for the system to be developed in Phase II. During Phase I, there will be two major efforts: (1) a systematic study and analysis of the technologies involved, the configuration options, and the available software components; and (2) a prototype software development effort to explore the key issue of automating the evaluation of the process of writing characters. There are a number of precise rules governing the writing of characters in Japanese, such as stroke order and stroke direction, and there are general principles regarding overall appearance and balance while allowing for variations in style. The latter requirement suggests that a expert-system approach may be useful, and this will be tested in the prototype development. The technical challenges include: exploiting pen-based computer technology, enhancing character recognition with expert-system rules for evaluating the character formation process, incorporating digitized voice technology as a primary component of the instructional process, and integrating the writing modules with software that permits teacher and student control over the program.

Keywords:
pen-based systems, handwriting recognition, Japanese, hypertext, CALL (computer-assisted language learning), digitized voice.Summary: As a result of Phase I, the proposed system of Phase II will provide a more effective means of teaching Japanese characters and character formation. This is expected to substandally benefit students of Japanese as a second language, as well as providing an innovative means of teaching Japanese reading and writing to professionals desiring access to the Japanese scientific and technical literature. Topic 5: Development of Computer-Based Assisted Instruction Software Package Designed to Teach One or More of the Less Commonly Taught Foreign Languages

Our goal is to produce a software package that will be used with an electronic tablet to help teach students to write Japanese. Given the difficulty experienced by many U.S. students in learning kanji, and the greatly increasing interest in the U.S. in learning Japanese, an automated tool for teaching kanji writing is both currently lacking and highly desirable. Building upon Phase I, the Phase II effort will culminate in a completed hypertext interface adhering to pedagogical principles, a completed framework for incorporating new characters, and a base package of approximately 50 characters (to be expanded in Phase III). The major tasks for Phase II are: (a) refine the stroke coding scheme to accommodate a more detailed representation of curves and angles; (b) define and implement a stroke_related language to capture the relationships among stroke parts; (c) expand the concept of stroke types to accommodate character_dependent variations in size and shape; (d) develop the pedagogical structure and content of the user interface; (e) expand the expert system knowledge base in terms of the expert advice incorporated and in numbers of characters; and (f) conduct a small trial of the system with students of Japanese.Summary: At a time when the U.S. is increasingly aware of the role of Japan in a world economy, students of Japanese should not be hampered by lack of automat_ed tools for learning the Japanese characters. The proposed system will meet that need for the growing number of high school, college and business_oriented Japanese language programs. The Phase II effort will complete the basic development of the product, and Phase m will be devoted to expanding the character set, possibly porting the system to other hardware platforms, and bringing the product to market.

Keywords:
computer_assisted language learning (CALL), expert systems, pen_based systems, Japanese.Topic 5: Development of Computer_Based Assisted Instruction Software Package Designed to Teach One or More of the Less Commonly Taught Foreign Languages