Paper short abstract:

Through interviewing five participants, this paper aims to provide a contextual qualitative study and analysis of the multilingual and multicultural backgrounds of online workshop participants and their relationship with the associations to find out what such activities mean to them.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of the project implemented by the presenters since 2016 was to further the horizontal connections between Japanese language teachers' associations in Europe and to seek out the direction and possibilities of their activities. Through this project quantitative surveys were targeted on members of the associations as well as online workshop participants were conducted and analysed. With such activities in mind, this paper aims to provide a contextual qualitative study and analysis of the multilingual and multicultural backgrounds of the online workshop participants and their relationship with the associations to find out what such activities mean to them. 　

In terms of the methodology, online workshop participants were interviewed about their life stories and from this group we chose five participants residing in Europe who attended the "Language Education for Cultivating Literacy" online workshop held as part of our project in 2019 and who indicated that they participated in the workshop due to their "interest in the topic".　

This project examines the significance of our "online workshops for Japanese language teachers in Europe" from the perceptions of the participants by finding out the languages and cultural backgrounds of the interviewees (online workshop participants) within their life-story identity, as well as by listening to their individual voices as members of various Japanese language teachers associations and/or as participants of online workshops.　

In addition to the analysis presented, the project also aims to better understand workshop participants as well as the stance and attitude of those designing online workshops in Europe.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this study is to analyze what kinds of evaluative strategies Hungarian and Chinese upper course learners of Japanese use to describe events in oral story telling tasks from I-JAS Corpus, and comparing that with expressions used by native Ja panese speakers.

Paper long abstract:

This study examines evaluative strategies on language use of Japanese learners in the narrative discourses. Story tellers have been found to use a variety of evaluative strategies to express their judgments and perspectives while telling a story. Evaluative strategies indicate the point of narrative and it is difficult for second language learners to use them in quantity and diversity (Chen, 2019). Whereas there is a significant body of research that compares narrative strategies by Japanese learners of Chinese, much less investigation has been done on narratives by Japanese learners of European language.

The purpose of this study is to analyze what kinds of evaluative strategies Hungarian(HL) and Chinese(CL) upper course learners of Japanese use to describe events in oral story telling tasks from the International Corpus of Japanese as a Second language (I-JAS), and comparing that with expressions used by native Ja panese speakers(JJ). Data was analyzed from 32 instances of oral storytelling in I-JAS corpus by upper course learners of Japanese (10 by HL and 22 by CL: SPOT score 80-85) and 17 by JJ.

The result showed that HL, CL used evaluative strategies twice as many as JJ, which were used to show their perspectives or attitude. However, there were differences in the use of strategies by HL, CL and JJ. (1) JJ put most of their references to "judgements" into the climax of narrative. In contrast, HL's references were to show unexpected result and CL to describe unnecessary scenes. (2) JJ's references to "internal emotional states" were used to highlight the climax of narrative, such as bikkurishita 'shocked'. However, HL did it to a much lesser degree and CL used it in unnecessary scenes yet. (3) Both CL and HL used degree adverbs and focus particles more than JJ.

The findings of the current study suggest that it may be difficult for upper course learners to empl oy those evaluative strategies to show the climax of the story. The findings from this study shed light on the need for the use of evaluative strategies in future L2 acquisition.

Paper short abstract:

I will introduce the Department Improvement Project. It creates dialogues not only among learners but also between teacher and learners. This is a Japanese course setting in which the teacher can interact with the learners as an equal, rather than becoming a knowledge transmitter or facilitator.

Paper long abstract:

The typical teacher in the classroom is a knowledge transmitter or facilitator. The former tend not to see the learner as competent. The latter tends to emphasize the learners' abilities but takes the position that it is the teacher who brings out their capabilities. So, it is hard to imagine that either type may interact with learners on an equal level. But is it impossible for the teacher and learners to have a dialogue on a peer level in the classroom?

For example, when a veteran teacher instructs a newcomer, the veteran often observes the new colleague's lesson and gives advice. However, if the experienced teacher and the neophyte colleague show each other's class over a long period, there would be less one-way coaching and dialogue could be created to improve their lessons.

Thinking about it this way, incorporating the common goal of a teacher and learners into the classroom could create a dialogue at their equal level between them.

Therefore, in this presentation, I will introduce the Department Improvement Project. This project conducts in a Japanese course in the Master's program of the Department of Japanese Studies. In this project, the course students complete a questionnaire survey for all students in the department. Then, based on the results of the analysis, they make a collection of recommendations and submit it to the department. At the same time, the teacher also faces an ongoing test of his seriousness in using the recommendations to improve the department. Therefore, when students discuss questionnaire making, data analysis, and creating suggestions, the teacher take s part as one participant.

Here, the teacher is neither a knowledge transmitter nor a facilitator. Teachers show students the importance of keeping a dialogue with others (students, colleagues and supervisors) to achieve their goals through his own words and actions. If the teacher teaches something there, that is the importance of " creating an environment where we can continue the dialogue, and keep on having the dialogue". Through this presentation, I will reconsider the role of the teacher.