MLO 5: Cultural Internalization and Language Immersion
5.1 Students demonstrate that they have actively immersed themselves in authentic Japanese cultural and linguistic environments and have internalized the language and cultural experience, from which they have developed a personal understanding and new perspectives of the community.
Courses Taken
JAPN 320S: Advanced Japanese Service Learning x3
Courses Taken
JAPN 320S: Advanced Japanese Service Learning x3
Reflective Narrative
The path for my immersion in Japanese culture and language consisted of twice the amount of hours required for service learning in the community. It was incredibly fun and rewarding as a result. I spent much of the time researching teaching ideas and lesson plans for elementary students. I overcame many obstacles in the process, like how to actually teach. Each lesson was put together as best as possible to facilitate Japanese culture and language. Once that was finished the real difficulty was how to make the subject fun, appealing and engaging while at the same time spread the message that Language and culture is a benefit to the youth. I logged a total of 120 hours of service learning between 3 different local elementary schools. Each school had an after school program for the kids and that's when a few other Japanese majors and I would set up our lessons. Each school had a slightly different demographic and everything that revolves around that community must be taken into consideration to teach the children. The immersion took place in the actual teaching of Japanese culture and language because I was completely focused on the elements that make up that language and culture. I had to really know what I was talking about to have the right attitude and confidence to teach. Many of the lessons were from cultural aspects that I didn't know about. However, for the difficulty I had in the many hours of teaching I found that I have a natural ability to teach. This was surprising even though I was brought up in a family of educators. After all that was said and done, I have come to the realization that, I too, enjoy teaching and seeing the wonder and curiosity of the students faces. Overall the understanding of the Japanese cultural and linguistic environments, the community awareness, and experiences were carved into my psyche every day while teaching kids Japanese culture and language. Please refer to the Service Learning link to see some more samples of classwork created.
Sample 1
JAPN 320s Midterm Presentation
The path for my immersion in Japanese culture and language consisted of twice the amount of hours required for service learning in the community. It was incredibly fun and rewarding as a result. I spent much of the time researching teaching ideas and lesson plans for elementary students. I overcame many obstacles in the process, like how to actually teach. Each lesson was put together as best as possible to facilitate Japanese culture and language. Once that was finished the real difficulty was how to make the subject fun, appealing and engaging while at the same time spread the message that Language and culture is a benefit to the youth. I logged a total of 120 hours of service learning between 3 different local elementary schools. Each school had an after school program for the kids and that's when a few other Japanese majors and I would set up our lessons. Each school had a slightly different demographic and everything that revolves around that community must be taken into consideration to teach the children. The immersion took place in the actual teaching of Japanese culture and language because I was completely focused on the elements that make up that language and culture. I had to really know what I was talking about to have the right attitude and confidence to teach. Many of the lessons were from cultural aspects that I didn't know about. However, for the difficulty I had in the many hours of teaching I found that I have a natural ability to teach. This was surprising even though I was brought up in a family of educators. After all that was said and done, I have come to the realization that, I too, enjoy teaching and seeing the wonder and curiosity of the students faces. Overall the understanding of the Japanese cultural and linguistic environments, the community awareness, and experiences were carved into my psyche every day while teaching kids Japanese culture and language. Please refer to the Service Learning link to see some more samples of classwork created.
Sample 1
JAPN 320s Midterm Presentation