I teach online courses to middle and high school students in Level 1 and Level 2 Japanese. Due to the online set up, I am unable to change the daily lessons that students see, but I can host meetings, post information, and host lessons with additional content to supplement and engage my students. Many of my lessons are a web based resource that students can explore on their own time. I also create videos with information, guest lectures, and in-person group and 1-1 teaching sessions.
My students expresses a lot of interest to learn more about the people of Japan today, demographics of Japan, issues that the people are experiences, and the daily life of people in Japan.
From this course, I learned more about gender roles in Japan, how other Southeast Asian countries affect Japan, current issues in Japan (climate change, economy, population, and minorities in Japan.
I used this information to create a blog-like post for one of my students. This is a resource that students will see when they log into their course as an additional area of exploration.
Next, I used this information to create a 5 minute video for another school’s anime club who wanted to know more about indigenous populations in Japan (around the same time as Indigenous Peoples Day in the U.S.).
Finally, I used the information I learned to create a massive PowerPoint that I used in a synchronous lesson where students got to pick the topics we discussed. They picked “People” by an overwhelming majority, so I discussed the population issue and marriage decline and divorce increase in Japan. We ran out of time to get to indigenous populations. However, the PowerPoint can also be posted for students to access, and with more time I plan to add more slides and even links and resources in the notes section for students to use on their own time.
ACTFL Standards (World Language Standards used by Common Core)
Relating Cultural Practices to Perspectives: Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the cultures studied.
Acquiring Information and Diverse Perspectives: Learners access and evaluate information and diverse perspectives that are available through the language and its cultures.
Cultural Comparisons: Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
Lifelong Learning: Learners set goals and reflect on their progress in using languages for enjoyment, enrichment, and advancement.
This is a link to a screenshot of my blog post: Top Portion, Bottom Portion, Student comment example
This is a link to the video for the anime club: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tglXAGCFbrVHgy_nzqxCgIN1LiOTaMub/view?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1tglXAGCFbrVHgy_nzqxCgIN1LiOTaMub/view?usp=sharing
Japan PPT (PDF was too large to attach, so here is a link that I would give to students interested in learning more after the lesson): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10IYpBs_nbbj6_gxr2ta37hkZ2HXX2M3F/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109504633900218394444&rtpof=true&sd=true