Paper short abstract:

This study focuses on developing teaching materials for improving response in Q&A sessions of presentations for learners of Japanese. These materials consist of four stages: 1. Mental preparation, 2. Understanding questions, 3. Answering questions, and 4. Showing consideration for the audience.

Paper long abstract:

This study focuses on question-and-answer (Q&A) sessions, an area that which has been inadequately covered in presentation teaching materials for international students leaning Japanese. This involves exploring ways of learning and developing new teaching materials to promote a more active discussion between students and their audience.

Since one of the aims of presentations by students is to improve their study through feedback from the audience, Q&A session hold a highly crucial role; however, currently, Q&A sessions do not receive much attention in Japanese language learning. As a result, many students feel regret for not being able to respond satisfactorily in Q&A sessions. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to increase students' knowledge of how Q&A sessions operate and to conduct practice Q&A sessions with students. These teaching materials consist of four different stages of learning: 1. Mental preparation, 2. How to properly understand questions, 3. How to answer questions, and 4. How to show consideration for the audience during Q&A sessions.

In the first stage, students are tasked with thinking about the aims and intentions of presenters and audiences. In the second stage, students learn the general frame and structure of Q&A sessions. If a presenter cannot properly understand the meaning of a question, he or she cannot answer appropriately. Therefore, in this stage, students learn commonly used Japanese expressions in Q&A sessions to better equip them for answering their audience.　In the third stage, students are taught ways of answering questions under a time limit and ways of responding in various scenarios, such as in cases in which they do not understand the Japanese in the question or they understand the Japanese but do not understand the questioner's intentions.　In the final stage, students discuss how to react when asked questions involving inaccurate facts or misconceptions and learn that there is not always only one correct answer.

In two trial courses, in which the students studied this material for the first time, the students' reaction was that the contents of the course are useful for improving international students' presentation skills.