Innovation in Japanese language education methodologies — Performance as a fundamental element for significant learning of language

Client: Chilean-Japanese Institute of Culture

Our team: 1 UX Strategist & Researcher — 1 Japanese Language Educators — 1 Project Advisor

Research

Starting with user research, this project relies on ethnography as a starting point to describe the experience of speaking Japanese as a foreigner. 4 months are dedicated to participant observation of everyday situations in which 20 students of Japanese language must operationalize their knowledge of the language and culture to solve daily tasks: navigate public transportation, do paperwork, negotiate academic matters ,socialize, etc.

While most students start by replicating the socio-cultural structures they know from their own countries when speaking Japanese (ie: handshakes instead of bows, physical contact in the form of hugs or friendly touching, etc), soon enough they start picking up on the forms of interaction seen between native Japanese, and start accompanying the language with an associated social performance. For example, most students start by commonly asking their counterparts “how are you doing” (お元気ですか), which would be a common western greeting, but soon enough realize this is not a common exchange for Japanese people, and hence it is met with a bit of reluctancy. Students soon start replicating the usual Japanese praxis and replace “how are you doing” with commentary on the situation surrounding the speakers (ie: “it has been so long since we last spoke” -久しぶり-or “you must have worked very hard today” -お疲れ様です), which is a more commonly accepted greeting amongst Japanese speakers.

The degree to which foreign students adapt to these social interactions differs, but it appears clear that those students more willing to shift their socio-cultural praxis become better accepted and regarded in higher esteem by most of their Japanese peers, when compared to those who continue to replicate in a more literal manner their own cultural praxis. It is worth mentioning at this point that in both cases students are speaking technically correct Japanese, it is only the assisting performance element that differs.

This observation process begs the following question, which is central for the development of the resulting products: “how is a foreign speaker’s performativity affected by immersion?”. A series of activities and informant interviews are conducted over the next 2 months to establish an answer to this question, starting by listing the different performative instances.

Systematizing initial findings

The different instances of performative interactions observed are categorized and listed in order of frequency. A summarized list with the main categories and interactions is produced:

• Social: Inauguration/Closing events, Hobbies club activities, Romantic meetups, Social celebrations, Drinking meetups.
• Academic: Classroom interactions, Administrative tasks, Paperwork, Testing
• Transactional: Train system navigation, Food and daily sustenance, Mailing administration, Immigration and authority interactions, Rentals & Utilities.

Defining the problem, defining the solution

It is time to take a step back and assess the opportunities found. Japanese language is taught around the world in a fairly standardized manner: a very limited collection of textbooks is utilized, and a single, traditional methodology relying on repetition and imitation is emphasized.

Leading research on language education points towards methodology that relies more heavily on doing and performing than it does on memorizing and cramming. Gamification of the teaching methodology proposes an attractive route for the achievement of experiential learning. Based on this principle, and initial ethnographic observation, the solution proposal takes shape: a performative and experiential workshop for the practical acquisition of Japanese language, focused on the integration of future foreigners into native communities, through practice and exploration of the performative acts present in Japanese society. As opposed to traditional Japanese lessons, which focus on delivery of vocabulary and grammar structures, this workshop aims at optimizing the use of the language in everyday life

User definition

Understanding the composition of a Japanese-language classroom is a hands-on mission. In collaboration with the Japanese-Chilean institute of Culture, Chile, observation of classes and interviews with teachers and instructors were carried to define three types of personas or user profiles, each with their own level of proficiency, specific wants, and needs.

• Self driven-ambitious: Highly motivated students with clear, specific educational goals, often related to a certain career path or academic endeavor. Normally tuned-into social performance, and ready to engage in whatever form of performance comes associated with the language.
• Culture enthusiasts: Energetic user with a high interest in some area of Japanese culture, often times since childhood. Willing to replicate cultural praxis as seen in popular culture but having a hard time distinguishing fictional performance from real-life performance.
• Social explorers: Curious set of students, often times struggling with performativity within their own culture, craving integration within Japanese society.

Objective definition

Three specific goals guide the development of this project:

• Creating a clear and effective sense of gaming.
• Development of a gaming kit to support the process.
• Optimizing the performative use of Japanese Language.

A set of five games is developed with one central interaction in mind: social gatherings. Other prevalent topics of Japanese society are researched and proposed as future sets.

Download and play the games

Testing & validation

The workshop is conducted with the participation of 20 students from the Japanese-Chilean institute of Culture. All sessions are filmed and a set of 7 Key performance indicators per game are established to evaluate degree of success of each experience. Criteria for evaluation is also determined with the collaboration of teachers and educators, and a final process of comparison with a regular Japanese class is conducted.
Across all games, Indicators see considerable improvement, in the following manner:

• Student-Student interaction:29-64% improvement
• Student-teacher interaction: 11-15% improvement
• Individual speaking interactions: 40-65% improvement
• Speaking instances initiated by student: 51-74% improvement.
• Use of body language instances: 21-25% improvement
• Use of Japanese intonation to support interaction: 9-24% improvement.
• Use of Japanese performative sentence: 5-12% improvement