The Language Teacher
01 - 2001

Teaching Hiragana Using a Communicative Project-Based Approach

Miyuki Endo

akarta International School, Indonesia

QUICK GUIDE

Key Words: Communicative Project, Student-Generated Materials
Learner English Level: Beginner
Learner Maturity Level: Jr. High School
Preparation Time: Approximately 10 minutes; a bit more initially to prepare sample eye chart
Activity Time: Depends on number of students

The following Communicative Project-Based Approach is an effective, meaningful, and enjoyable method of teaching Japanese as a foreign language at the secondary level. It is often the case that students work harder and learn more when they can make their own learning materials. These projects require students to demonstrate all the skills and new knowledge they have acquired in relation to a particular topic. The teacher sets up the project according to the aims of each topic area and presents it to the students at the beginning of each new topic. The projects motivate students and give them reasons to learn new vocabulary and sentence structures. These new elements function like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: projects are the context where all the "pieces" of the puzzle can be integrated.

Before the Project

The context chosen for the example project outlined below is a visit to the optometrist. In order to prepare for the project, the students must have been taught the Hiragana characters (including variations of some of the 46 basic syllables), demonstrative pronouns, and a few question sentences and instructions which might be observed in a real context which the students are likely to have experienced. At this preparatory stage, the teacher must also have taught numbers from 1-100 and direction words
(). Once these basics have been introduced and practiced in class, the students should be given the following guidelines to begin work on their projects.

Project Activities

Task: Make an eye chart and role-play in pairs

Situation: Optometrist, eyewear shop

Requirements for the eye chart -- the following must be included:

some of the 46 basic Hiragana symbols
some of the voiced consonants
some of the voiceless consonants
some contracted consonants
some of the numbers from 1-100
all of the direction words (using circles with openings in the various directions)

The teacher shows a sample of an eye chart for students to refer to. My students enjoy being able to produce Hiragana, which they have just learnt, in such a way that they are involved in constructing the project materials (i.e., the eye chart). They pay close attention to each stroke and write Hiragana as neatly as they can. The following assessment criteria should also be shown to students in order for them to know what they are expected to achieve in this project.

Assessment Criteria:

A. Eye chart

Meets the requirements above /10
Made neatly /10

B. Oral performance

Able to read Hiragana /20
Able to say numbers in Japanese /20
Able to say directions in Japanese /20
Able to say instructions in Japanese /20

Greetings, self-introductions (name and age, accompanied by appropriate body language), or filling in a form (name, age and address) can be added as compulsory elements of the situation. Students are given approximately 40 minutes to prepare the chart and to practice a dialogue that they can use with it. The following is a possible dialogue:

(Eye practitioner
........Patient)

Preparation and performance of these projects involves all of the four language skills: writing (Hiragana), reading (Hiragana, numbers and direction marks), listening (following instructions), and speaking (giving instructions and answering questions).

Conclusions

In my teaching experience using this approach, my students have enjoyed making their own materials for learning. They have also had fun performing the role-plays. Creating a communicative project involving all the four skills in relation to a particular topic or for a particular age group may be difficult; however, when the teacher creates an effective, meaningful and enjoyable project of this type, and when the students become involved and motivated in it, it can be one of the keys to a successful learning experience. It is through the project component that students learn how to use in context the language they are learning. The Communicative Project-Based Approach links the language with a real situation--a link which is often missing when studying Japanese abroad. This approach helps the students to place all the pieces of the linguistic jigsaw that they have encountered into the right position in the language learning puzzle.

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