As the new academic c
alendar 2020-21, brought the world of teaching and learning from classrooms to a variety of virtual platforms, teachers of different subjects from different institutions have evolved in their field of teaching and learning immensely. Seeking this tough and challenging time as another opportunity to learn from each other to become better teachers, a workshop was organized by JALSTA (Japanese Language School Teacher’s Association) in collaboration with Japan Foundation, New Delhi that was held on May 25, 2020. The workshop was held on the virtual platform, Zoom, and was attended by the Japanese language teachers from all over India along with the Japanese language advisor, Ms. Mami Imoto, Japan Foundation, New Delhi; over from Japan.
The workshop started with the introduction of a website called Kanji alive app for teaching of Kanjis to students of Classes IX and X by Ms. Ruchie Bhalla, Japanese language teacher at NJLA, New Delhi. The effective use of the application was explained and demonstrated with a couple of kanjis that in turn helped the teachers to find a better medium for teaching of kanjis virtually. The teachers found the application extremely useful for their Japanese language classes as through Kanji Alive App, students could not only learn the stroke order of writing a kanji but also the variety of vocabulary related to the kanji.
Along with the introduction of new websites and applications for teaching of kanjis, a session on teaching of Insta-chat, i.e; writing on Instagram, the newly introduced writing skill for the Japanese language learners of Class X, was taken by Ms. Mami Imoto, the Japanese language advisor, Japan Foundation, New Delhi.
The idea behind introducing Insta-chat in the CBSE curriculum was discussed with teachers and how it could prove to be helpful in teaching of real-life situations along with raising the Japanese language ability of the students.
The teachers were made comfortable with the teaching of Insta-chat, by taking examples from their real-life instances. Discussion on what Insta-chat is, when it is written, how it is written, for whom it is written, what content could be written, what kind of language is used, expression of feelings and emotions behind writing the content, etc; was done in detail and strategized.
Teachers were also given a hands-on practice of writing Insta-chat for being able to gain better clarity of the concept and idea behind writing it.
The workshop ended with effective learning and absorption of new ideas from each other that would help all the Japanese language teachers in their teaching at various levels.
In continuity to the previous workshop, another workshop was organized on June 6, 2020, with the perspective of further strengthening the teaching of Japanese language teachers virtually.
The first session of the workshop was taken by Mr. Jitender Mehta, a Japanese language teacher at Delhi Public School, Sonepat. The session was about teaching the use of Google Forms as a medium for assessing the learning of the students by creating forms (tests) with a variety of questions to be answered as multiple choices.
The procedure of creating the form along with choosing the grid for the kind of questions the teacher is willing to assess, were demonstrated. Also, few prepared question papers were also taken up as examples to understand the concept of Google forms better. The teachers found the Google forms a comfortable tool to test the content taught by the teachers. The queries of the teachers were also answered very positively.
After teaching of Google forms, a session on teaching of topics to Classes VIII, IX and X was taken by Ms. Babita Bhakuni, teacher at Delhi Public School Greater Noida. Teaching of a concept from Class IX book, Minna no Nihongo was discussed targeting communication as one of the language skills by trying to put students in real life situations.
In addition, the concept of Dictogloss was shared as one of the teaching techniques, especially for the Japanese language learners of Class X, by which multiple skills of a language can be brought together that can in turn be used to test the understanding of different concepts in one activity.
The workshop ended with effective learning and absorption of new ideas from each other that would help all the Japanese language teachers in their teaching at various levels.
