Paper short abstract:

Sponsorized by MIUR, University of Naples "L'Orientale" in 2015, by exploiting the potential of Moodle open-source platform, worked out a path full of activities which allowed students to consolidate what they learned in their classes, in a dynamic and stimulating way. Results will be discussed.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015 MIUR (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) sponsorized a three-year project (to be financed from year to year, on the basis of the achieved results) in order to promote the development of teaching multimedia aids, which can be used in University language courses. Ministerial guidelines were rather vague so that each chair interpreted them freely.

At University of Naples "L'Orientale", the Japanese chair, by fully exploiting the potential of Moodle open-source platform, worked out a path full of activities which allowed students to consolidate what they learned in their classes, in a dynamic and stimulating way.

The branched out teaching equipment offered during academic year 2015/2016 (interactive exercises, videos about grammar, dictations, listening etc.) was worked out on the chosen textbook path, that is the Italian version of Japanese for College Students by ICU, and was assigned to first-year students.

Most exercises were created with HotPotatoes programme and then inserted into the virtual class. The programme compatibility with Moodle platform allowed the creation of an "auditor register", thanks to which it was possible to collect automatedly a huge amount of data. In fact each student's activities were recorded and inserted into a common database, enabling the comparison between the activities carried out during the academic year and the written examinations results.

During the course the students were also given an online tutoring, thanks to which they could ask grammar questions to their Italian professor and present their writing exercises to their mother tongue professor.

At the end of the course the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire so as to pinpoint the strenghts and the weaknesses of the project.

The collected data are interesting indeed and can be used as the starting point for further reflection.

Paper short abstract:

Our presentation will focus on our experience of creating a pedagogical material for Japanese language teaching aiming at an intercultural understanding. We will discuss the process of elaboration in which we reflected on how we can make a personal experience into a text for pedagogical use.

Paper long abstract:

In our presentation, we will report our experience in elaborating a pedagogical material for Japanese language teaching, which aims at an inter-cultural understanding.

What can language teaching do for the language learners who are in a constant process of changing their own identity through the encounter with new cultures brought by learning a language? It can provide them opportunities to see the diverse aspects of cultures and the various attitudes, which we can adopt when facing the differences. These practices allow them to know diversified points of view that we can have toward the differences.

The presenters had the opportunity to interview a karate master, who is teaching in France for about 40 years, about the conflicts between two different cultures. He had grabbed in a conscientious way conflicts between French culture and the one of karate, that takes origin in Japanese culture, and have been teaching this martial art positioning himself as an intercultural mediator. Since the cultural differences he had understood and the mediations between these two cultures are very instructive for Japanese learning/teaching, we proceeded to a "case writing", making it accessible for language learning/teaching context.

The case writing is a part of a process in which we create pedagogical materials for "the case learning" proposed by Kondoh et al (2013). In the case learning, participants collaborate to understand a text that describes a real situation and seek together solutions to resolve the identified problems. This way of active learning corresponds to our perspective and thus we chose it as our method for the inter-cultural understanding.

In our presentation, we particularly focus on the case writing, preparative process of the case learning. As Kondoh et al (2015) indicates, a text based on a personal experience is subject to have prejudice or stereotype, which is not insignificant to the learners nor to the teachers. The text should allow nevertheless the learners to experience the situation as if he/she were in it. We would like to share what we did or discussed and do the same with participants of the symposium.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will report on findings from a survey on the use of social media technologies by university students in the UK, for learning Japanese. I will report on the factors that contribute to the learning of Japanese by university students, and the role technology plays in this learning process.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will report on the findings from an ongoing survey on the use of social media technologies by students at university level in the UK, for learning Japanese as a foreign language.

This survey looks at three stages of learning - 1) prior to study in Japan, where students begin to use social media to create networks in Japanese to gather information on study abroad 2) during study abroad, where students deepen their learning of Japanese by elaborating their social networks and 3) on return to the UK, where they are able to maintain their Japanese language learning using the networks they have created during study abroad.

This study focuses particularly on the social media platforms that students choose to create personal learning environments (PLEs), and how they use them to increase their exposure to the target language at these different stages of learning.

The study is based on the theory of learner contributions to language learning put forward by Breen (2001) and a framework of second language acquisition and individuality proposed by Hayashi (2006). Together, they provide a means to describe and analyze a variety of individual factors that contribute to second language acquisition, which take into account the learner, teacher, second language learning processes and contexts.

The findings will report on the factors that contribute to the learning of Japanese by university students at these three stages, and the role technology plays in this learning process.

Breen, M. (Ed.) (2001) LEARNER CONTRIBUTIONS TO LANGUAGE LEARNING: NEW DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCH. Pearson Education, Harlow, UK

Hayashi, S. (1997) A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING JAPANESE/ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, Tsuda College, Tokyo