Game-based 3D Virtual Environment for Learning Japanese Language and Culture

The first high school student Haiku-Karuta competition was held at I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in May 2017. Haiku, which is a traditional Japanese cultural form, is widely known abroad, and karuta is often used in Japanese language educational institutions. Our competition event is a fusion of these two kinds of Japanese cultural traditions, i.e. haiku and karuta, and 61 high school students participated in the game. The competition contributes to the reception and diffusion of haiku and karuta in Taiwan. Also, the educational merits of the competition involve students having to concentrate on listening to and reading Japanese traditional poems. The fusion is immensely useful in learning Japanese language and culture. In this paper, we will describe the competition in detail. 2017年5月、台湾高雄の義守大学で第1回高校生俳句かるた大会が開かれた。日本の伝統文化である俳句は海外でも広く知られており、またかるたも日本語教育のなかでしばしば使われている。俳句とかるたという2 種類の日本文化を融合させた本大会に7校の高校生、61名が参加した。当該大会の教育的意義は主に以下の3つである。1. 俳句を集中して聞き、該当する札を見つけるという訓練を通じて得られる日本語能力の向上、2. 日本文化の理解の促進、3. チームワークの重要性に対する認識。また本大会の開催を通じてこれらの日本の伝統文化の受容と普及へとつながることが期待できる。本論では、この大会について詳細に報告する。この報告が俳句とかるたを用いた教育の参考例となり、台湾に限らず各国での日本語・日本文化教育がより一層充実したものになればと考えている。

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Engaging in Collaborative Learning in a Japanese Language Classroom

The Language Teacher - The Language Teacher 39.1 ◽

10.37546/jalttlt36.1-3 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 17

Author(s):

Megumu Doi ◽

John Peters

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Learning ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Social Process ◽

Social Constructionist ◽

Japanese Language ◽

Annual Conference ◽

American University ◽

Language And Culture ◽

Language Classroom ◽

Duke University

This article discusses the experiences of Megumu (first author) and her students as they engaged in collaborative learning (CL) in their intermediate Japanese course at an American university. CL was one of three types of teaching and learning employed in Megumu’s course, but it enabled students to learn aspects of Japanese language and culture that other types of teaching and learning are not designed to accomplish. We first discuss the concept of CL from our social constructionist perspective; i.e., we see learning as a social process of knowing instead of merely a construct of individual minds (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Gergen, 1999). This is then followed by a description of how this social constructionist perspective was incorporated in Megumu’s course, based on her and students’ reflections on their CL experiences. Finally, we close with an invitation to readers to explore the potential of CL in various Japanese language classroom environments. 本論では、米国大学の中級日本語のクラスで、筆者とその学生達が協働学習教授法（Collaborative learning: CL）に参加した際の経験を論じる。CLはこのクラスで用いられた3種類の教授法の1つで、学生達が日本の言語や文化を学ぶ上で、他の教授法では可能でないことを達成するのに大変役立った。本論では、まず、社会構造主義の視点に基づいたCLの概念を論じる。ここで言う社会構造主義とは、学習を単に個人の知の構築ではなく、物事を知るという社会的過程であるとみなす理論である (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Gergen, 1999)。次に、この社会構造主義の側面が筆者のクラスでどう用いられているかを、学生達との実際の経験を振り返って叙述する。最後に、様々な日本語教育現場におけるCLの可能性を、共に探求するよう読者に提案する。 *A version of this paper was presented at the 25th Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Teachers of Japanese (SEATJ) at Duke University, NC, in May 2010.

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