Designing and Developing Hiragana Learning Materials

This paper reports on an action research project aimed at designing and developing Hiragana learning materials. This project has been motivated by the scarcity of suitable teaching and learning materials for students learning Japanese as a foreign language at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), notably for the writing component, which forms the foundation of learning the Japanese language. This paper will firstly describe the issues faced by the Japanese language teachers in the development of appropriate materials, followed by the steps carried out to arrest the problems based on pragmatic pedagogical considerations. Such considerations include issues of raising interest and motivation, text and task selection, as well as the inclusion of simulated dialogues and social semiotics, namely images, characters, and manga (comic) animations. The findings of the studyrevealed that the materials, which have been compiled as a new course book, are able to bridge the needs of learners, promote keen interest in the learning of the Hiragana writing, and have a positive effect on the students.