JAPN 301s: Service Learning
Description:
This course gives students opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture through their community service and to develop communication skills through discussions, reflection essays and presentations
Narrative:
Like JAPN 304, I had taken this class before I went to Japan. My level of Japanese was not very high, and the course required a fair amount of Japanese. Most of what I had learned about Japan was the classes that I took, so I had a difficult time coming up with lesson plans that I felt were truly Japanese and were the best things to teach about Japanese culture. Luckily, I had two Japanese exchange students to help me out with planning lessons. During the start of the semester, we drafted a lesson plan for the duration of the course. For each week, we would attempt to teach a different aspect of Japanese culture whether it be from famous stories to games that children play in Japan during breaks. For each activity we would discuss how each of them taught an aspect of Japanese culture. Some of the things taht we did during our time teaching were reading classic Japanese stories to the students, playing Japanese games like Daruma-san ga koronda and Fruits Basket, and towards the end of the semester, watching Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. In the last week of our meeting with the children, we asked them what they had learned about Japanese culture, but more importantly, what things were similar or different from the culture they grew up in in an attempt to demonstrate that diversity shouldn't carry a negative meaning and that being oneself or standing out isn't a bad thing.
While we were teaching, there wasn't one student that was having trouble understanding the content or acted out. One of the classes was quiet, but mainly because they were shy. They were all so eager to learn, and so excited when we walked in. The whole point of service learning is to not just teach someone something and leave, or say that you are "helping" them. By using the word help, it implies that person helping is above the other. The point of service learning is for both parties to learn something by the end of it. In this case the students learned about Japanese culture, and I learned that even though we have the term "Ugly American" children have a fascination of things that they don't know about. Ignorance is something that is taught, so if we teach widely diverse things and teach that everything is different in a good way, only good can come of it.
This course gives students opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture through their community service and to develop communication skills through discussions, reflection essays and presentations
Narrative:
Like JAPN 304, I had taken this class before I went to Japan. My level of Japanese was not very high, and the course required a fair amount of Japanese. Most of what I had learned about Japan was the classes that I took, so I had a difficult time coming up with lesson plans that I felt were truly Japanese and were the best things to teach about Japanese culture. Luckily, I had two Japanese exchange students to help me out with planning lessons. During the start of the semester, we drafted a lesson plan for the duration of the course. For each week, we would attempt to teach a different aspect of Japanese culture whether it be from famous stories to games that children play in Japan during breaks. For each activity we would discuss how each of them taught an aspect of Japanese culture. Some of the things taht we did during our time teaching were reading classic Japanese stories to the students, playing Japanese games like Daruma-san ga koronda and Fruits Basket, and towards the end of the semester, watching Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. In the last week of our meeting with the children, we asked them what they had learned about Japanese culture, but more importantly, what things were similar or different from the culture they grew up in in an attempt to demonstrate that diversity shouldn't carry a negative meaning and that being oneself or standing out isn't a bad thing.
While we were teaching, there wasn't one student that was having trouble understanding the content or acted out. One of the classes was quiet, but mainly because they were shy. They were all so eager to learn, and so excited when we walked in. The whole point of service learning is to not just teach someone something and leave, or say that you are "helping" them. By using the word help, it implies that person helping is above the other. The point of service learning is for both parties to learn something by the end of it. In this case the students learned about Japanese culture, and I learned that even though we have the term "Ugly American" children have a fascination of things that they don't know about. Ignorance is something that is taught, so if we teach widely diverse things and teach that everything is different in a good way, only good can come of it.