Paper short abstract:

This presentation is a practical report of a student-participation and student-centered classes in which 6 Japanese students and 3 international students decided on themes and contents in a total of 15 sessions in 2022, conducted research activities, and then created and transmitted the mediums.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation is a practical report of a student-participation and student-centered classes in which 6 Japanese students and 3 undergraduate international students decided on themes and contents in a total of 15 sessions in 2022, conducted research activities, and then created and transmitted the mediums.

The purpose of the classes is to deepen the understanding of cross-cultural communication through the planning and management of activities aimed at multicultural coexistence within and outside the school, to acquire the skills necessary to transmit the attractiveness of the community, to respect others, and to realize and develop others' and one's own abilities while fulfilling their roles.

In this presentation, I take up the scene of the planning meeting and describe the content of what was said by whom, as well as what I observed from the descriptions of exchanges in the process from the creation of multiple ideas to the decision of the specific content. I also consider the role of teachers as facilitators in decision making.

The data consisted of recordings (about 60 minutes) of the discussions held by the 3 groups at the time of the decision of the plan content and verbatim transcripts of the recordings, which described the flow of speech, and were observed and analyzed. In the course of discussions, it was observed that the teacher's statements and intentions influenced their decision making. This may be because the teacher is trying to fulfill the role of facilitator, which is “to facilitate people's activities and steer them to get things done.” In terms of decision making within each group, although they did not decide in advance, it was observed that the students with leadership roles collected and organized their opinions.

Facilitation requires four skills: situation design, interpersonal relations, structuring, and consensus building. However, through observation of the data and this practice, in addition to the above four skills, I believe that it is necessary to cultivate an attitude to keep a distance enough to keep the soup warm, and an attitude of not giving up and not being afraid of failure, both with respect to students and teachers.

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