Manten Resources

Supporting your Japanese language program

Manten Resources

Exploring Values

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The impact of social media on our students’ view of themselves is a concern for us as educators. We want them to leave school with a strong sense of self and good values that will guide them through life. This can seem like an impossible goal at times though when we watch them obsess over the perfect selfie shot rather than enjoy the actual moment.

One day I was visiting my mother in hospital and I had stopped at the hospital café. Two young women in their early 20s were discussing how they “needed” to get botox again in their lips. They were young, beautiful and healthy women sitting in a building where all around them people were fighting for their lives. Such preoccupation with looks and a curated image on-line is a struggle that my generation did not have to go through. I wished I could interrupt and urge the girls to concern themselves less with their presentation, and more on their personal achievements in life. What did they hope to do with their lives? What did they hope to see, experience, achieve, give back?

Values are a key to such personal understanding, yet we spend little time at school or as adults considering what these mean for each of us. Sometimes it is only when we hear of the challenges and achievements of others over adversity that we glimpse what this could mean for us individually. Role models can enable others to believe in their own potential. Public awards such as the Australian of the Year acknowledge these positive role models and redress the imbalance presented by the media and social media platforms

Fact:  In 2014, there were 14 Aboriginal finalists for the Australian of the Year Awards. By 2015, one in 7 Australian of the Year recipients were Aboriginal.
Source: Famous Aboriginal people, activists & role models – Creative Spirits, retrieved from https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/famous-aboriginal-people-role-models#toc1

This website has some fabulous information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. It reminds us that the media does not always present a balanced view of the world and that stereotypes are developed through such biased representation. This inspired me to wonder, how can I improve value awareness and knowledge of positive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander role models whilst meeting the demands of the Japanese language syllabus?

The Stage 5 Values assessment task

This pitch for this task-based learning sequence and assessment is:
You are part of a marketing team that handles campaigns for multinational corporations. Your new client is a Japanese company looking to expand its business. Your job is to recruit possible ambassadors for the company that are in synch with their core values of ゆうき、がまん、きょうりょく、and どりょく.
Your brief is to find positive role models that represent at least two of the core values. You need to present background information on 4 possible candidates. At least two candidates must be Japanese.

The task takes students through identifying their own values, exploring the profiles and life experience timelines of famous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander role models. They will develop vocabulary resources related to these profiles, use the resources to read Japanese texts about these people and analyse how these people match the identified values of international companies such as Honda. Students will then focus on the identified Japanese values of ゆうき、がまん、きょうりょく、and どりょく to create a mixed media presentation endorsing 4 possible candidates. This task focuses on reading, writing and speaking skills and includes formative and summative assessment opportunities throughout.

If you are interested in such a task, it is available from Manten Resources for $70. Simply email jblog1help@gmail.com to order.

Good luck with your values journey!

Investing in you

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Every time you take a flight you receive some excellent advice on life that most of us not only ignore, we fail to even acknowledge at the time. I am referring to the safety demonstration. The wisdom in the words “secure your own oxygen mask before helping others” is applicable to all aspects of our lives. Yet as we roll into term 3 how many of us have spent the first half of the year helping our students, our staff and the school community often at the expense of our own time, relationships and personal needs.

One area I feel we are particularly poor at is prioritizing our own learning needs. I was fortunate to visit Japan these holidays and I was reminded of how the culture of learning permeates everything in Japanese society. It is not only students studying for exams, but adults taking proficiency tests and courses in everything from foreign language classes to needlework and tai chi. Stationery stores had special diaries to help people use their time more wisely and focus on daily goals. Even I became enthused by their slogan 「大切な一日を無駄にしない」.

So, I did what every Japanese teacher does and stocked up on resources – but this time for me. I purchased study guides for the Japanese Language Proficiency exam at levels suitable for the teachers I work with and me. I realised that the best way to model a growth mindset to my students, is to demonstrate how I continue to prioritize learning in my own life. Year after year, we let our own language proficiency decline as we teach to junior classes. We become used to only using the kanji that is listed on the syllabus. It was so exciting to be immersed in “non-syllabus” kanji again in Japan. It was like eating out with adults after weeks of sharing simple meals designed to suit your toddlers.

I know we are time poor but if you committed to 5 minutes a day 6 days a week you will be spending the same amount of time on Japanese that many of our primary students receive! It doesn’t have to be quality time either – 5 minutes on the commute, in the carpark before you drive home, at breakfast before anyone gets up or in the bath at night. My son loaded a fitness app on my phone recently that has a fabulous robot voice that offers no room to procrastinate. She loudly announces prior to each new set “Do the exercise.” There is no enthusiasm in her voice, she is not trying to convince me this will be fun, she simply wants me to get on with it.

Invest in you this term and start “securing your own oxygen mask before helping others”.

If you need some motivation to get started the JLTAV are running a language maintenance immersion weekend in October https://forms.gle/9mQHZStFNSsCbf1EA and the Japan Foundation run monthly speaking nights and courses specifically for teachers.

Mid-year goal check

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We are officially half-way through winter and half-way through the school year. Hopefully we can begin to find some fresh energy as we look towards the warmer days to come. This mid-point is a perfect time to pause and reflect on how your students are progressing. It is likely that some students are merging ahead in their learning of script whilst others may be lagging behind.

I was reminded the other day of how exciting learning to read for the first time can be. I had been showing a male primary student a few hiragana letters and then lined them up to spell basic words like sushi and sashimi. His amazement and excitement to realise that the letters spelt words that they knew was infectious. There is some concern that boys are often less motivated language learners than females, but deeper investigation reveals that this is often tied more to a lack of progress indicators than a lack of interest in the actual content.

Boys complain it is difficult to see the extent they have improved due to a lack of progress indicators (Pavy 2006). Without such indicators of achievement, their motivation wanes.
Pavy, S.(2006) Boys Learning Languages Babel, v41 n1 p4-11, 38

I have found that boys particularly enjoy kanji and find the visual meaning and the challenge appealing. I have watched students embrace their script studies via self-directed systems such as our Patch system. This system is available for hiragana, katakana, and two levels of kanji. It allows students to work ahead at their own pace and provides progress indicators as they pass each of the 15 levels. It can save teachers hours of preparation time and remove that nagging stress each day of needing to extend students on the spot who have finished the work faster than you expected. This systemic program of differentiation extends the students in a meaningful way.

As we approach the midpoint of the year, try to pause and reflect on one aspect of your students’ progress that you would like to improve upon in the coming months. Where possible, use a systematic approach that you can return to again and again.
If script is your goal, then you may be interested in our Patch system.
If improving student confidence in speaking is your focus, then you may like to try our Speaking stations game or develop your own. The speaking stations game aims to develop a growth mindset in your students and increase time on task in speaking skills.
Resources such as these are only $50. If the budget allows, it may be worth purchasing such an item rather than spending a few weeks making it yourself. Use the time instead to maintain your own well-being so that you can continue to inspire your students with your enthusiasm and energy.

All the best for the start of term 3!

teacher requested resources

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The teacher of a subject is often the very best person to know what their students need. This includes knowing what resources will be most effective for the cohort. Knowing what your students or your self could benefit from and having the time to create those resources though are two different things. That is where I hope to help. Recently I have had several teachers contact me about resources they were looking for. As a result we now have 3 new resources that may interest you.

1.New combined student workbook package

If you have purchase our student workbook resources pack (which includes 8 PDF work booklets for each chapter, teacher marking guidelines, sound files and google form tasks) you can now add on the combined workbook package for $50 for all three (ie Jblog 1, 2 and 3) or $25 each for one booklet (eg just Jblog 1.)

Why is this so handy?

This add-on package provides you with one PDF per textbook so that you can print off one booklet for the year if you wish.
It also provides you with the word document version though so that you can completely customise the booklet for you class! You can add in your favourite worksheets and activities; delete the provided ones that you never use and personalise each class booklet with photographs of your town, class etc.
This offer is only available to teachers who have purchased the student workbook resources pack.

2.New flashcards display cards
One teacher was looking for flashcards to display in their room. This set of 145 cards are all the Kanji listed in the Kanji index of Jblog 1, 2 and 3. You receive the set as PDF, word and individual jpegs so that you can also use them in presentations and activities. This set is $50.

3.New assessment task for Stage 4
This task is called the “Japanese investment Expo” and was inspired by a discussion with one of our regional teachers. The idea is that students use their knowledge of their region and agriculture to lure Japanese investment into a product of their choice. The hook is a narrative about a new mayor. Below is a brief extract.

The brief
A new mayor has been elected to your town. They are keen to increase the profile of your town on the international stage. The mayor has two key projects in mind.
The first is to establish a new sister city relationship with a town in Japan.
The second is to attract Japanese investment into local agricultural businesses to expand production and increase employment.
Your team will need to work through the attached tasks to help the mayor achieve these targets.

You can read more about this task on our blog. This task is $70 and can be modified to reuse each year.

Thank you to all the wonderful teachers who contact me and share with me their teaching situation. It is always a pleasure to hear from you and I look forward to seeing several of you at our Noosa Workshop July 13th!

Until then remember you can email me directly on jblog1help@gmail.com to order, make a request or just have a chat!

 

 

Making language relevant in regional areas

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The challenge of building a profile for language courses in what Tony Liddicoat has described as the “monolingual mindset of Australia” is well known. If those of us struggle to do so in metropolitan areas when we have access to resources such as restaurants staffed by native speakers, foreign language bookshops and libraries, spare a thought for our regional colleagues.

I recently wrote on the topic of “the new differentiation”, inspired by Seth Godin’s book “This is Marketing.” In it, he writes:

It doesn’t make sense to make a key and then run around and looking for a lock to open. The only productive solution is to find a lock and then fashion a key. It is easier to make products and services for the customers you seek to serve than it is to find customers for your products and services. (pages 5-6)

I linked this idea to our efforts to establish language programs. How many of us are trying to sell a language program rather than creating a languages product that meets the needs of your key stakeholders? Do you even know what the needs and desires are of your stakeholders are?

I discussed this topic recently with a regional teacher and asked her what the most popular elective class is at her school. She replied that agriculture was and that her Japanese class was constantly running against it on the elective line. It would be a momentous task to change the culture of the school and the community which obviously values agriculture and the role in plays in local industry. Equally, the timetable/ curriculum coordinator is not going to listen to your pleas to have your subject moved away from the popular one. So, what can one do in such a situation?

This dilemma inspired me to create a Stage 4 assessment task called the “Japanese investment Expo”. The idea is that students use their knowledge of their region and agriculture to lure Japanese investment into a product of their choice. Here is a brief extract from the task:

Task overview

Australia is well known internationally for its agricultural success. We are a popular country for trade and investment due to our political and economic stability, our natural resources, safe and ethical practices and high level of research and development.

This assessment requires you to use your knowledge of agriculture in your region with your developing Japanese language skills. This is a group task that will develop your skills in collaboration, project management and creativity.

The brief

A new mayor has been elected to your town. They are keen to increase the profile of your town on the international stage. The mayor has two key projects in mind.

The first is to establish a new sister city relationship with a town in Japan.

The second is to attract Japanese investment into local agricultural businesses to expand production and increase employment.

Your team will need to work through the attached tasks to help the mayor achieve these targets.

Students work through the reflection tasks that have them analyse details from a Japanese text, use hiragana and katakana tables to categorise export products and produce a bilingual video promoting their chosen agricultural industry using simple language and the scaffold provided. An optional extra would be to hold the “Expo” during a visit by Japanese students. The local students could share their videos at small stands and attempt to lure the students to invest in their product using the (fake) investment yen distributed by the teacher to each visitor.

I live in a metropolitan area now, but I grew up on the South coast of NSW and studied agriculture myself for the HSC. We had an “ag plot” that we all loved and we experimented with raising chickens, driving tractors and the power of the electric fence (not recommended!). A few weeks ago, I was visiting Austrade and was impressed by the documents they produce on “investment opportunities in Australian agribusiness and food”. I had no idea Japanese companies like Hakubaku have built a noodle processing plant here or that Kagome have a tomato processing plant in Victoria. There are legitimate opportunities for Australian agribusiness to work with Japan so let’s start preparing our regional students to make the most of these in the future.

Let us now return to the original dilemma of what to do when up against the popular agriculture subject on an elective line. My advice would be to run an assessment task such as this one in Stage 4 and demonstrate to the timetable/ curriculum coordinator that these subjects work well together so should be on a different line. I would reinforce this with different agriculture linked assessment in Stage 5 and joint visits to the agriculture farm with visiting sister school students. Piggy-back onto the popularity of agriculture rather than fight it, and you may find they become your greatest allies. Don’t forget to share your Japanese cooking with the agriculture teachers either – and maybe use that opportunity to discuss how you are creating cross-curriculum tasks in your subject.

Good luck regional teachers!

The Japanese investment Expo assessment task is available for purchase for $70. It can be modified and reused each year to suit your cohort. Email jblog1help@gmail.com to order.

Improving productive skills via contemporary issues

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If you are looking for a different way to develop your students speaking, reading and writing skills in Japanese, then perhaps you should try this controversial method.

One of the challenges of a language teacher, particularly at the secondary level, is that the level of target language competence is greatly inferior to the student’s ability to think in their first language. These can lead to much frustration for both the learner and the teacher. Class activities can appear less sophisticated than other subjects if pitched at the level of target language competency. Whilst the Japanese class works extremely hard to master ordering a meal, next door the geography class is solving global environmental issues. Sometimes teachers resort to discussing the higher order cultural issues in English but then feel guilty that they have abandoned the “language aspect” of the lesson. So, what can we do to achieve a better balance?

My preference is to use English as the stimulus resource and Japanese as the language of interaction. This way students can quickly access the key concepts of the issue and tick that literacy box at the same time. The interaction with the materials though focuses on developing student productive skills such as listening and responding, summarising facts as an infographic or composing skits based on the perspective of the stimulus text.

So how could this work in a secondary context. Take the following link as a sample stimulus text. It introduces the story of the Indonesian sisters who campaigned to ban plastic bags in Bali.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/bali-tourists-bagged-to-support-girls-monumental-plastic-rubbish-goal-20160311-gng8xs.html

After reading this text in English, you could discuss the text with your students in the following ways.

1.Speaking skills check

メラティさんとイサベルさんはどこからきましたか。どこにすんでいますか。なにじんですか。

メラティさんはイサベルさんのお母さんですか。

メラティさんは何才ですか。

2.Reading skills check

メラティさんとイサベルさんは何がきらいですか。

  • ビニールぶくろ（ごみ）
  • いぬ
  • しゅくだい

メラティさんとイサベルさんはロンドンにいきました。　まる・ばつ

3.Writing skills

Writing tasks will vary according to the level of the students but could be composed and performed in small groups. For example, students could imagine they are Melita and Isabel. They could write:

  • a role play about the lesson that led them to start the campaign
  • a letter/email to a relative telling them about their trip to London to speak at the TEDTalk conference
  • a diary reflection about telling their parents their plans for the campaign
  • a comic summarising the key events in their story

At our Noosa Workshop, we will be looking at some more examples of how you can apply this technique using texts on gender issues and stereotyping in the media. Delegates will have a chance to experience the technique first-hand and will receive all the texts and sample tasks as part of the workshop. We hope to see you there!