MLO 1: Language and Communication
1.1. Students are able to communicate effectively in Japanese in three modes: interpersonal, interpretive and presentational; and in a culturally appropriate manner in a variety of social and professional settings and circumstances at the Intermediate-High level of language proficiency, according to the ACTFL Guidelines.
1.2. Students gain competency in the Japanese language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and discourse and compare and analyze the structural differences between Japanese and English.
Courses Taken
JAPN 300: Intro to Advance Communication
JAPN 301: Advance Japanese for Interpersonal Communication
JAPN 304: Introduction to Translation and Interpretation
JAPN 402: Japanese Literature
To complete MLO 1, the four classes that I took were Intro to Advanced Communication, Advanced Japanese for Interpersonal Communication, JAPN 304, Introduction to Translation and Interpretation, and Japanese Literature. Through the combined effort of all four of these classes, I learned about the three styles of communication that the MLO requires: interpersonal, interpretive and presentational. Also, in each class we spent an extensive amount of time working on pronunciation and syntax to satisfy requirement 1.2.
JAPN 300 served as the frame work for all three types of communication. for interpersonal communication. There were a number of practice conversations that we had to memorize and perform with a partner in hopes of us internalizing the structure of everyday speech with people ranging from store clerks to our grandparents (1.1). There were a number of presentations that would have us fill the roles of different kinds of people. My favorite was the presentation that I had to play the role of a master of ceremonies and introduce a guest speaker that was winning an award. For this project we would need to speak in honorific form when talking about the reward recipient, and humble form if we referred to ourselves at all. As for interpretation, there were a number of improvised speaking tests that we had with the teacher throughout the course of the class (1.1).
I took JAPN 301 in conjunction with the JAPN 300. This felt like the most Japanese language courses that I had taken throughout my entire college career even though when I was in Japan I had three hours of Japanese a day. I think it was because of the intensity and rigor of the courses. In japan I we just focused mainly on learning the language while in these classes we were required to utilize the language while we were still learning at a very rapid pace. Like JAPN 300, there were a number of in class and take home assignments that required us to use our Japanese in a number of ways. Probably one of the more interesting things that I did was during my midterm in which I gave a five minute presentation on the sentence ending particles よ、ね、and か, and the different meanings that they had based on the upward and downward inflection that you used (1.2).
JAPN 304 was interesting, because I took it when before I had gone to Japan and I was just finishing up the 4 main language classes in the major. I had to rely on my senpai to carry me through the class. This class from what I remember was a bunch of exercises in translation and how to write in formal ways. The one thing that I remember doing that was really fun but incredibly difficult was writing captions for pictures that were going to go in a newspaper. The way that I had to write the sentence was much different from the standard way of writing. At the time I didn’t know, but once I got back from Japan and I revisited some of my old assignments, I realized that a lot of them used a lot of noun modification. For example, in English newspapers, captions are usually small narratives explaining the picture itself, but in Japanese, often times the caption explains the main object of the picture in a way that if you said it, it would sound strange. (1.2.)
Where JAPN 300 taught us different ways of communication, JAPN 402 taught us about different styles of writing in Japanese. We learned about a number of different authors and their works. These works included free verse poems, haikus and a number of short stories from authors that had very different writing styles and tones. For each author, we would spend a couple of weeks reading and discussing his or her works. At the start of a new author, we would spend the first class briefly discussing their life and their works, their signature writing style or theme if they had one, what kind of life they lived etc. At the end of that class we would usually get a vocabulary and kanji list to study for a quiz in the next class. The following two or three classes would be spent reading the authors works and analyzing the content, and answering questions to check for comprehension of the material. Aside from the in class activities we were also required to write reflective essays in Japanese on some of the stories and connect how the morals of those stories applied to our lives, and wrote our own poems and short stories. (1.1) The final project of the class was a book report and powerpoint presentation on a book of our choosing from one of the authors that we read (see below). This class satisfied both . This class definitely helped fulfill MLO 1.2. There was plenty of language learning in this class, but much of the time spent in class was learning about all kinds of expressions and idioms as well as kanji. For example, some of the authors used older fashioned Japanese so the syntax as well as the diction was different from modern day Japanese. Also, we spent a few weeks at the start of the course learning about all the different types of structures of poetry.
1.2. Students gain competency in the Japanese language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and discourse and compare and analyze the structural differences between Japanese and English.
Courses Taken
JAPN 300: Intro to Advance Communication
JAPN 301: Advance Japanese for Interpersonal Communication
JAPN 304: Introduction to Translation and Interpretation
JAPN 402: Japanese Literature
To complete MLO 1, the four classes that I took were Intro to Advanced Communication, Advanced Japanese for Interpersonal Communication, JAPN 304, Introduction to Translation and Interpretation, and Japanese Literature. Through the combined effort of all four of these classes, I learned about the three styles of communication that the MLO requires: interpersonal, interpretive and presentational. Also, in each class we spent an extensive amount of time working on pronunciation and syntax to satisfy requirement 1.2.
JAPN 300 served as the frame work for all three types of communication. for interpersonal communication. There were a number of practice conversations that we had to memorize and perform with a partner in hopes of us internalizing the structure of everyday speech with people ranging from store clerks to our grandparents (1.1). There were a number of presentations that would have us fill the roles of different kinds of people. My favorite was the presentation that I had to play the role of a master of ceremonies and introduce a guest speaker that was winning an award. For this project we would need to speak in honorific form when talking about the reward recipient, and humble form if we referred to ourselves at all. As for interpretation, there were a number of improvised speaking tests that we had with the teacher throughout the course of the class (1.1).
I took JAPN 301 in conjunction with the JAPN 300. This felt like the most Japanese language courses that I had taken throughout my entire college career even though when I was in Japan I had three hours of Japanese a day. I think it was because of the intensity and rigor of the courses. In japan I we just focused mainly on learning the language while in these classes we were required to utilize the language while we were still learning at a very rapid pace. Like JAPN 300, there were a number of in class and take home assignments that required us to use our Japanese in a number of ways. Probably one of the more interesting things that I did was during my midterm in which I gave a five minute presentation on the sentence ending particles よ、ね、and か, and the different meanings that they had based on the upward and downward inflection that you used (1.2).
JAPN 304 was interesting, because I took it when before I had gone to Japan and I was just finishing up the 4 main language classes in the major. I had to rely on my senpai to carry me through the class. This class from what I remember was a bunch of exercises in translation and how to write in formal ways. The one thing that I remember doing that was really fun but incredibly difficult was writing captions for pictures that were going to go in a newspaper. The way that I had to write the sentence was much different from the standard way of writing. At the time I didn’t know, but once I got back from Japan and I revisited some of my old assignments, I realized that a lot of them used a lot of noun modification. For example, in English newspapers, captions are usually small narratives explaining the picture itself, but in Japanese, often times the caption explains the main object of the picture in a way that if you said it, it would sound strange. (1.2.)
Where JAPN 300 taught us different ways of communication, JAPN 402 taught us about different styles of writing in Japanese. We learned about a number of different authors and their works. These works included free verse poems, haikus and a number of short stories from authors that had very different writing styles and tones. For each author, we would spend a couple of weeks reading and discussing his or her works. At the start of a new author, we would spend the first class briefly discussing their life and their works, their signature writing style or theme if they had one, what kind of life they lived etc. At the end of that class we would usually get a vocabulary and kanji list to study for a quiz in the next class. The following two or three classes would be spent reading the authors works and analyzing the content, and answering questions to check for comprehension of the material. Aside from the in class activities we were also required to write reflective essays in Japanese on some of the stories and connect how the morals of those stories applied to our lives, and wrote our own poems and short stories. (1.1) The final project of the class was a book report and powerpoint presentation on a book of our choosing from one of the authors that we read (see below). This class satisfied both . This class definitely helped fulfill MLO 1.2. There was plenty of language learning in this class, but much of the time spent in class was learning about all kinds of expressions and idioms as well as kanji. For example, some of the authors used older fashioned Japanese so the syntax as well as the diction was different from modern day Japanese. Also, we spent a few weeks at the start of the course learning about all the different types of structures of poetry.
bookreportmatthewgin.pdf | |
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midterm_ppt.pdf | |
File Size: | 80 kb |
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japn402finalpapermatthewgin.docx | |
File Size: | 6 kb |
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402_literature_pres_matt_gin.pdf | |
File Size: | 3500 kb |
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finalpresentationnobuouematsu.pdf | |
File Size: | 666 kb |
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