Support system for making audio-visual material for learning language

In foreign language education, since students often learn a language through a textbook-based class, it is difficult for them to learn about nonlinguistic aspects such as body language or paralanguage, and it is hard for students to apply these aspects to actual conversation, which is made up of many language variants. With rapidly increasing numbers of foreign language learners, the education system is faced, more and more, with difficulties in dealing with the diversified needs of foreign language learners. Although language education programs using audio-visual materials are increasing, it is not easy for teachers conducting language classes to extract and present particular scenes from audio-visual materials which relate to specific learning topics. Hence, the authors have tried to develop a support system for multipurpose use of audio-visual material that corresponds to learning applications. This paper describes two things: a search system that we have developed for audio-visual material on the internet, and a learning materials development support tool. The purpose of this system is to acquire practical language skills by using story-based image content, which is difficult with text-based education. The use of this system has the following advantages: a user, who prepares the learning material, can freely develop his material making use of image contents, and users can share the developed materials.