Paper short abstract:

The present paper consists of a short presentation of the Japanese grammar and vocabulary teaching materials developed in Romania. Developing materials is strongly related to the process of learning and teaching, forming a system, in which every one plays an important role.

Paper long abstract:

The present paper consists of a short presentation of the Japanese grammar and the Japanese vocabulary teaching materials developed in Romania. All of these materials are the products of the Japanese language teaching and learning processes. Until now, there have been used Japanese language materials made in Japan, which were not so familiar to the learners. This is the reason why the authors have decided to develop materials taking into consideration the cultural and linguistic difference between Japanese and Romanian. There are also briefly introduced some of the major difficulties in writing down the Japanese grammar and vocabulary teaching materials in the Romanian language. Despite the fact that their content as well as their level of difficulty differ, if we regard them conceptually some common points can be observed. The paper refers to various issues, such as the topics related to the difficulties which occur in Romanian as far as terminology is concerned, the way they influence the presentation of the classification of the Japanese sentence patterns, the number and the content of the examples, as well as the expressions with a similar meaning. Besides that, as far as the Japanese vocabulary is concerned, our research focuses upon the classification by situation, the selection of the minimum number of words, as well as their translation into Romanian. The Japanese language learners can discover different aspects of Japanese as well as Romanian historical and cultural background through examples. Writing down Japanese language teaching materials is strongly related to the process of learning and teaching, and it is a system through which both processes can be improved as every one of them plays an important role, by being an essential gear in this kind of machinery.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation reports a case study of communicative activities on SNS between learners of Japanese at beginner level and Japanese learners of English at advanced level, and examines what opportunities for learning Japanese and for collaborative learning are available in this type of activities.

Paper long abstract:

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, including social networking services (SNS), has dramatically has transformed the environment of language teaching and learning. In the field of Japanese Language Education, a growing number of studies have reported case studies utilising SNS, and specifically exploring the aspect of collaborative learning based on the sociocultural theory. Many of these projects were organised for intermediate to advanced learners. However, the case studies involving learners at beginner level are still scarce. From the perspective of the sociocultural theory, which claims that 'learning occurs through social interaction with others' (Thomson, 2007: 169), it is necessary to arrange learning activities in order to facilitate communication in meaningful contexts even at beginner level. One instructor of a Japanese beginner course at a British university and one instructor of an English as a foreign language at a Japanese university arranged communicative activities for their students, utilising an educational oriented SNS, Edmodo.

This study reports the results of the Edmodo project. A total of 27 British university students who took a beginner level Japanese course and 29 Japanese students who were enrolled in an advanced English class participated in this project. Over the course of one semester, both groups of students posted messages twice, in Japanese as well as in English, and commented on the other students' posts. In order to explore the students' perspectives on this project, a questionnaire was conducted. In this presentation, we will present the outline of the project, and particularly in order to examine the opportunities of learning Japanese and collaborative learning, the focus was placed on the beginner level students of Japanese. We will also explore how the project can be improved to support the learners of Japanese at beginner level.

Thomson, C. K. (2007). Gakushū kankyō o dezain suru - gakushūsha komyunitī toshite no nihongo kyōshi yōsē kōsu (Design a learning environment: a teacher training course as a learner community). Sekaino Nihongo Kyōiku, 17, 169-185.

Paper short abstract:

We designed co-learning classes where general students and foreign students learn together. We analyzed free description comments and extracted characteristic words and carried out a correspondence analysis for both of the groups and for both of the learning styles, seminar and lecture.Considering course designs for co-learning classes: based on the analysis of learning styles and learning processes [JP]

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, many cases in which active learning centered around collaborative learning is implemented have been reported in terms of co-learning classes for general students and foreign students, in the context of cultivating human resources with a global perspective at universities. However, as Suematsu (2014) argues, "because the history of co-learning classes is short and the teaching methods are not fully established, those who teach co-learning classes are using a process of trial and error" at the moment.

We designed and taught co-learning classes where general students and foreign students learn together for the last decade. Basically, we aim to establish relationships among students and expand perspectives of objectively observing oneself and one's own culture, but we go through years of trial and error in terms of the contents to teach and learning styles. In this presentation, we will introduce a case in which co-learning is implemented with the use of both the seminar style, comprised mainly of group learning, and the lecture style, and then analyze the learning styles, the activeness of the students and their learning processes, for the objective of exploring course designs for future co-learning classes. The following is the overview of the case to be analyzed.

Implementation period: April - July 2016

Number of students: 26 Japanese students (J), 26 foreign students (F)

Learning styles: Seminar and lecture

　　The data used for analysis is free description comments written at the end of each session. We extracted characteristic words and carried out a correspondence analysis for both of the groups, J and F and for both of the learning styles, seminar and lecture, while extracting, analyzing, and interpreting representative comments. The results showed that words related to the theme or the learning styles such as "education," "presentation," and "group" are characteristic of Group F, while in Group J, there were many descriptions written from the perspective of comparison with Japan, such as "Japan," "myself," and "culture," and that in terms of seminar and lecture, there were differences in the use of verbs that characterize them.