Evaluation Behavior toward Essays by Chinese Learners of Japanese: A Comparison between Native Japanese-speaking Teachers and Native Chinese-speaking Teachers by Means of Protocol Analysis

This study used think-aloud protocols to compare evaluation behaviors between native Japanese-speaking teachers and Chinese-speaking teachers when they evaluate writing by Chinese learners of Japanese. A group of three native Japanese-speaking teachers and three native Chinese-speaking teachers evaluated four essays using both holistic and analytic scales while providing think-aloud protocols. The findings show that the native Chinese-speaking teachers paid more attention to the grammar used in the essays, while the native Japanese-speaking teachers were more likely to confirm the meaning and also made judgments about the logical aspect of the support for the main idea. Furthermore, it was found that, even for the same essay, the native Japanese-speaking teachers and Chinese-speaking teachers both had different views regarding the coherence of the main idea