Psycholingistic and neurolinguistic studies show that kanji processes involve the three aspects of kanji: graphic (visual), phonological (verbal) and semantic, simultaneously. Further, there is evidence that shows reading in kanji involves verbal as well as visual processes, whereas reading in English involve mainly verbal processes. It is apparent that English speaking learners of Japanese confront a new way of dealing with verbal as well as visual reading processes. The present study provides empirical evidence to show that kanji learning strategy use involves both verbal and visual learning style preferences. The findings of this study show that kanji learning cannot depend solely on verbal processes and the necessity of taking account of verbal as well as visual learning styles in kanji instruction. |