JAPN 320S: Advanced Japanese Service Learning
Course Description:
This course gives students opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture through their community service and to develop communication skills through discussions, reflection essays and presentations. Taught in Japanese.[Prereq: (Junior or Senior Standing) and (JAPN 300 or equivalent)]
This course gives students opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture through their community service and to develop communication skills through discussions, reflection essays and presentations. Taught in Japanese.[Prereq: (Junior or Senior Standing) and (JAPN 300 or equivalent)]
As I look back on this past semester, I have learned a great deal about community and myself through the Advanced Japanese Service Learning (JAPN 320s) course. For the course, students are supposed to apply their knowledge of Japanese language and culture in their community service and analyze issues of compassion, diversity, justice and social responsibility through reflective essays, group discussions and presentations. Issue analysis was primarily during class hours while outside of class, the class formed groups to teach about Japanese culture to less than fortunate children at different schools through the after school program, the Community Partnership for Youth (CPY). In my case, our group was assigned to teach children at Highland Elementary School in Seaside, CA.
We were met with many challenges from the beginning. Our biggest challenge was determining how to teach in a way so that the children would be able to retain what they had learned. Deciding on what to teach was simple in comparison to how we wanted to teach the topics within 45-minute to an hour long lessons. Eventually, our lessons were formatted in this way: class introduction, brief lecture of the topic, activity/game based on the topic, and class ending. After the first week of lessons, we would include a quick review on the topic discussed in the previous week to test the children’s memory. Through this format, we were able to teach the children about these topics: writing their name in katakana, what things were and were not Japanese, numbers, colors, origami, Japanese mask making, Japanese pop culture, how to use chopsticks, how to make onigiri and Japanese holidays.
JAPN 320s, for me, is reminiscent of a previous course I took during my year of studying abroad at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (NUFS). Sociology: Community Service was much like JAPN 320s in which we would teach Japanese children about our cultures while they taught us about their culture. Besides the language barrier, the children were even less fortunate than those we taught at Highland Elementary (we taught at orphanages). However, what I learned from both experiences is something that I would not soon forget: children have an immense thirst for knowledge. Their passion for learning continues to inspire me to share my knowledge, not wanting that passion to fade over time.
We were met with many challenges from the beginning. Our biggest challenge was determining how to teach in a way so that the children would be able to retain what they had learned. Deciding on what to teach was simple in comparison to how we wanted to teach the topics within 45-minute to an hour long lessons. Eventually, our lessons were formatted in this way: class introduction, brief lecture of the topic, activity/game based on the topic, and class ending. After the first week of lessons, we would include a quick review on the topic discussed in the previous week to test the children’s memory. Through this format, we were able to teach the children about these topics: writing their name in katakana, what things were and were not Japanese, numbers, colors, origami, Japanese mask making, Japanese pop culture, how to use chopsticks, how to make onigiri and Japanese holidays.
JAPN 320s, for me, is reminiscent of a previous course I took during my year of studying abroad at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (NUFS). Sociology: Community Service was much like JAPN 320s in which we would teach Japanese children about our cultures while they taught us about their culture. Besides the language barrier, the children were even less fortunate than those we taught at Highland Elementary (we taught at orphanages). However, what I learned from both experiences is something that I would not soon forget: children have an immense thirst for knowledge. Their passion for learning continues to inspire me to share my knowledge, not wanting that passion to fade over time.