Japanese Language

Instructor: Project Lecturer Takao Banno and others  

How many students took the course?

There were 20 students. All of them attended every class with almost no tardiness or absences.

What was the class format?

The classes were conducted live and interactively using Zoom. We also incorporated elements of the flipped classroom model. A flipped classroom is a teaching method where students learn content outside of class that would traditionally be taught in the classroom, and then use class time for exercises that would have been homework. In other words, the activities inside and outside the classroom are reversed. For communication outside of class, in addition to email and SFC-SFS, we used the chat application Discord. This was an effort to enhance the sense of being live and learning together with peers.

In the Japanese classes at SFC (for international and returnee students), we have implemented various creative approaches in each class. Here, I would like to focus on two specific initiatives from the Japanese Skills 1A (How to Take a Lecture) course.

In this class, the pre-assignment for each session was for students to watch a short video from the 'Academic Skills' series published on YouTube by the Keio Research Center for the Liberal Arts at Keio University, and then divide the work of transcribing about one minute of it each.

In class, students first split into groups of three or four who had watched the same video to confirm the content with each other (Fig. 1 Keio Research Center for the Liberal Arts YouTube Channel Video). Then, they changed groups and, in their new groups, explained the content they had confirmed to students who had watched a different video. Through this process, they were able to better understand the video's content. Additionally, those who had watched the same video could help each other, and they could efficiently learn about the content of videos they hadn't seen from those who had. After the group work, the discussions from each group were shared with the entire class, pursuing skills to deeply understand lecture content delivered in Japanese.  

In this class, students reflected on their own learning styles and experiences through theories and models, and considered their future learning and research. The results were shared with the entire class through midterm presentations and reflections on them.

Building on that, students shared their impressions and opinions about the online classes they were currently taking and discussed topics such as 'How can we make online learning more efficient, effective, and engaging?' and 'What should online learning look like for the fall semester?' With classes moving online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students in the Japanese class had a different experience from students whose native or first language is Japanese. We aimed to provide a space for international and returnee students, who share similar situations and backgrounds, to share their experiences and exchange opinions and thoughts that were difficult to express or for which there was no opportunity to express elsewhere, and for this class to function fully as a learning community.

The students' reactions were overwhelmingly positive. In the end-of-semester survey, we saw comments such as, 'With the final assignment, I was able to reconfirm what I had studied and also find areas for future improvement,' 'The instructor always listened to the students' opinions and summarized them,' 'I believe the self-evaluation and analysis will be very helpful for my studies,' and 'I especially recommend this class for those who are not confident in taking lectures in Japanese as a second language. I think it will deepen their knowledge of the lectures.' Regarding the effects, through the activities mentioned above, the students connected with each other and, as a result, grew as a learning community. Taking online classes can sometimes be lonely, and this is especially true for international and returnee students who may find themselves in an unfamiliar environment, unable to go to campus or make friends. In this class, we made efforts and took measures to help students recognize each other as 'peers learning together through the class.' From reports and reflections on each class, we could see that this class had indeed become such a place.