“SHORITAN” Vocabulary-building Exercises for Intermediate- and Advanced-Level Thai learners of Japanese

Abstract

Vocabulary-building is an important step in developing communication skills, andvocabulary should be learned efficiently and effectively. “SHORITAN” is a vocabularybuildingexercise designed by selecting high-frequency collocations and multi-word unitssuch as “noun+particle+verb,” used in context and arranged in the form of a short quiz totest students' comprehension of some of the words or expressions. The current study proposes“SHORITAN” as an effective vocabulary-building exercise for intermediate- and advanced-levellearners. We investigated the learners’ understanding of “words” and analyzed the usefulnessof “SHORITAN.” Also, “SHORITAN II,” developed by picking up errors found in textswritten by learners themselves, was used to help the learners notice the words or expressionscommonly used in Japanese. Our report describes and analyzes the use and usefulness of“SHORITAN” and “SHORITAN II” vocabulary-building exercises.