Paper short abstract:

This is a report on a Japanese language education practice aimed at cultivating global citizenship by means of watching the movie Kamome Shokudô (2006). We prepared and utilized original teaching materials to proceed smoothly with whole-class and group discussions.

Paper long abstract:

This is a report on a Japanese language education practice aimed at cultivating a sense of global citizenship with Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competences-PLCC (Council of Europe 2018) and Competences for Democratic Culture-CDC (Council of Europe 2016) by means of watching the movie Kamome Shokudô (2006), an ensemble drama set in a Japanese restaurant in Finland. There are a number of video works on the subject of intercultural awareness and intercultural communication, but Japanese language education practices such as this one that make use of them are rare. Students from a variety of backgrounds gather in Japanese language classes, which by themselves are an international community. In such a Japanese language class, we tried to cultivate the students' consciousness as citizens living in the international community, and their sense of respect for others.

In the class, we first watched the movie split into three parts, and after each part we reviewed the content together using our original teaching materials. The teaching materials provided include a character correlation diagram, notes on vocabulary and expressions, questions about the contents, a column for writing summaries, and a column for writing comments. By preparing and utilizing this original teaching material, we could make the students review the story after each viewing, summarize their impressions, and based on that, we were able to proceed smoothly with whole-class and group discussions. We also created review materials based on the contents of the students' writing clarifying the items to be reviewed for each student and used this as a guideline for their continued learning. Through this work, students could cultivate the ability to write with consideration for the reader, as well as the ability to speak with consideration for the listener, while explaining their views to others.

The essays written by the students and the discussions they conducted about the work provided a variety of perspectives. As an example, it was argued that the act of helping someone who is in trouble regardless of their nationality leads to building good human relationships. The students were forming their own identity as global citizens through the use of Japanese.

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