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This course is for students who have completed two or more years of Japanese or have reached an intermediate level of proficiency, and want to continue to build a higher level of proficiency. This course counts toward fulfilling CSUMB’s Japanese Major Learning Outcomes (MLO 1) and it also fulfills CSUMB’s upper division service learning requirement. Students will have the opportunity to engage with community projects of import and relevance, while examining issues of justice, compassion, diversity and social responsibility. Students have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Japanese language and culture through their community service and develop communication skills through discussions, reflection essays and presentations. Taught in Japanese.
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In JAPN 320s, I learned to teach Japanese language and culture to a young group of students, while collaborating with fellow CSUMB students to create lesson plans with engaging activities for the students. During class I had access to reading materials that encouraged a better understanding of what service is and how to better do so. They also discussed social issues that we would often relate back to our own experiences in our service learning.
I worked with the Community Partnership for Youth (CPY) based in Seaside. Through this program I was placed at Walter Colton Middle School in Monterey, where I served for 32 hours teaching primarily 6th and 7th grade students. This experience let me interact with the community around CSUMB as well as see the social issues we discussed in class during the experience. This service learning course was designed to fulfill four learning outcomes, which we learned through class readings and teaching Japanese language and culture at a service learning cite. 1. Self and Social Awareness Through service learning, I had the opportunity to learn about the world outside my own by being put in situations where I interact with those from other backgrounds in CPY. Even though I may be from different backgrounds from the students, we still may unite in our desire to learn Japanese language and culture. One major difference is our age, so the way I was taught in Middle school is drastically different from now. 2. Service and Social Responsibility Service learning also contributes to my understanding of the social responsibilities that teachers have when in a class with the students. The attitude I put forth can affect the students. We have to be accepting and treat everyone equally as to not put them down and make them feel less than their peers. This often happens with problem children in class, I have to try to calm him down without making him stick out. 3. Community and Social Justice In class, I also try to combat the children’s assumptions of other countries. I try to give them the correct information so that they can learn more. An example was in our last class one student who doesn’t come that often was confused about the cup ramen Maru-chan, he thought it was chinese. Since everyone was doing individual work it was easy to quickly explain that it was japanese and “chan” is a phrase used for friends for family. 4. Multicultural Community Building/Civic Engagement For our lesson on “fuku” one group member was able to borrow the traditional clothes from the local Buddhist temple. This has encouraged me to participate more in their community through events they held, such as the movie night at Watsonville Buddhist temple or the clean up at Monterey Peninsula Buddhist temple. Overall I have learned that some children know more than they think they do. On the first day all the students wrote for the mind map was anime, however, before classes the students may show they have some knowledge of the topic. For example, before the yokai class, Mathew was naming off some yokai that he knew about. We also created an action piece for which I said I would like to continue to be involved with the Buddhist temples in the area. I already have plans to visit them for another event and look forward to visiting more often in the future. |
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