ibunka TB_ver1.0_how to use the textbook

How to Use This Textbook: Section- by-section Introduction

PART 1: You and Your Culture The opening three pages of each unit act as a general gateway to the topic. • First (in the Warm-up Survey),

students reYlect on their own habits and preferences and those of their classmates. • Next (in the Interview), by taking a step back and comparing the tendencies of different groups, they can start thinking about the very real diversity within Japanese culture. • Finally (in Expression 1 and 2), we want students to talk about themselves in relation to their culture. Do they see themselves as being more like or more unlike most other people in Japanese society? Part 1 is necessary before showing examples of other cultures in Part 2. We

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should Yirst kindle students’ curiosity toward the lesson topics, which can seem mundane to them at Yirst glance. For example, when confronted with the topic of sleep (Unit 2: Rest and Sleep), students can be guided through activities that help them realize that the way we sleep, which they might take as basic and self-evident, is something that affects all aspects of our lifestyle, and is in fact a cultural habit. Part 1 allows students to dip a toe into the topics of the textbook, by reYlecting Yirst on themselves and their society.

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How Do I Use the Warm-up Survey Activity?

What is the Warm-up Survey ? This is a simple activity that allows students to reYlect on their personal habits, and help them quickly engage with the topic. How do I use this activity? 1. → OPTION: Read through the vocabulary list at the bottom of the page. Check that students understand the meaning of all items. Give examples where necessary. If you are permitted to use L1 Japanese in class, and if you would like to, you can expedite this step by having students access the online vocabulary list. 2. Have the students tick the relevant boxes in their textbooks to respond to Warm-up Survey questions 1 to 5 on the Yirst page of the unit. It might be a good idea

to have a different student read out each of the Yive questions, and make sure that all students understand the question. The teacher can go around the classroom and help students with comprehension. Remember to tell students that the answers they give to the Warm-up Survey … • have no effect on their grades • have no “right” or “wrong” answers- they are simply a way of getting students to think about some things which may seem very natural to them, but may be very different for other people. 3. → OPTION: You can then have students enter their responses into the corresponding Google Form. All of the responses will be merged into graphs and tables, which display in visual form the tendencies of the people in class. Once all students have sent their responses, you can project the Google Forms data on a screen and discuss tendencies with the group. This can be done at the end of the Warm-up Survey activity, before moving on to the Interview activity. However, you might prefer to wait until after the Interview activity is completed to discuss class tendencies with the group, so as not to spoil the fun that students have when they exchange information about their daily habits, during the Interview activity. Time required: 15~20 minutes

OPTION Є WRITING/SPEAKING DATA DESCRIPTION

If you have time, you might choose to have students think about and discuss the Warm-up Survey data collected from the entire class. The best timing for this might be after the Interview activity, to avoid spoiling the fun that students have when they exchange information about their daily habits, during the Interview activity.

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This is a good way for students to start using nuance and expressions of degree in their expression. The first time you introduce these patterns, explain to students that it sounds much more intelligent to say for example “Many Japanese people like to buy lottery tickets at the end of the year” than it is to say “ Japanese people like to buy lottery tickets at the end of the year.” It might be good to show students a table of these phrases (see an example below), and confirm that they understand their meanings and overlap. Gathering the data

If you are teaching in the classroom, in a completely analog way, you can tally numbers of students by counting raised hands for each response (if topics are particularly sensitive or embarrassing, you can have students close their eyes while they raise their hands to show their answer). Write the tally on the board. If you are teaching in the classroom, and students are able to use their smartphones, they can send their responses through Google Forms, and graphs and charts displaying the data will be generated automatically. This visual data can then be shared with the students via classroom projection. If you are teaching online, students can send their responses through Google Forms, and graphs and charts displaying the data will be generated automatically . This visual data can then be shared with the students over the share screen. Having students comment on the data It may be a good idea to write an example comment on the board, such as: Most of the people in this class sleep less than seven hours per night. All of us / All of the people in this class … (100%) Almost all of us / Almost all of the people in this class … (90~100%) Many of us / Many of the people in this class… ( ≈ 70~90%) Most of us / Most of the people in this class … (60~90%) (About) half of us / (About) half of the people in this class… ( ≈ 50%) Some of us / Some of the people in this class … ( ≈ 20~40%) A few of us …/ A few of the people in this class …

( ≈ 10~30%)

None of us … / None of the people in this class … (0%) If you have a more motivated or higher level class, you might like to have them add a personal reaction to the data, such as: This is a little surprising to me, since I thought that I was getting more sleep than most people.

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How Do I Use the Interview Activity?

What is the Interview ? Next, we have students do a communicative exercise in which they ask the same Yive Warm-up Survey questions to one or more partners, and record their responses in note form.. How do I use this activity?

1. To prepare for this, students must Yirst write out their responses to the questions in full sentences, and add reasons or opinions where possible. This Yirst time you do this, it might be a good idea to model one or two written responses on the board (you will Yind examples in the Teacher’s Manual). 2. Once all students have completed the survey, the teacher might ask some students to read out their written responses. (alternatively, the teacher might go around to individual students and check written responses individually) 3. Students Yind a partner and ask Questions 1-5 of the survey, taking down their partner’s responses in note form. They then move onto a second, and (if time permits) third partner. → OPTION: Before starting the actual interview, teachers can demonstrate how to take notes, by using the example interview available on the TEACHER section of the website (where you will Yind an audio track and script). The content of this interview corresponds to the example notes in the top row of the interview table in the textbook. 4. Finally, students can look at their notes and compare their answers with their partners’. They can then write or say a

short statement about how similar (or different) their answers were to their partners’. For example, if two of their answers were the same, they could say, “Our answers were mostly different.” If four or more were the same, they could say, “Our answers were largely the same.” The fact that students write their own answers to the warm-up survey BEFORE sharing them with others means that they are discouraged from deliberately “matching” their answers to those of their partner. This is quite a common cultural habit in unscripted Japanese conversation or discussion. Once their responses are “locked in” (written down), they are more likely to reYlect the true diversity within the class. Time required : 25~35 minutes (depending on number of interview partners) OPTION Є WRITING/SPEAKING In advanced level classes, once all students have completed their interviews, the teacher might have a few individual students report on the responses they received from one or more partners. This might be done orally or in written form, but in either case the object is to have students reconstruct full sentences from their notes. NB: If teaching online, this can be done anonymously to save the embarrassment of one’s answers being accessible to the entire class. 13

E.g. “ My first partner lives with her grandparents. She has her friends over to her house about once a month to just hang out. They usually hang out in the living room or her bedroom. She prefers to spend time with friends at home because it’s cheaper and more casual. ” Time required : 5~15 minutes

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How Do I Use the Expression 1 & 2 Activities?

What are Expression 1 & 2 ? This activity aims to broaden students’ view of wider Japanese society, and have them think about the differences between groups of people, or the ways in which behavior and language differs across contexts. Diversity is becoming a key word in Japanese education recently, and students are becoming more comfortable with expressing differences. However, when speaking about cultural habits, many students still tend to lump all Japanese people into one homogenous group. This is the kind of over-simplistic expression that we want to gently steer them away from. How do I use this activity? EXPRESSION 1

1. Point out to students the two columns of vocabulary and phrases. The list on the left contains a list of different people, groups, or situations. The list on the right shows some actions and tendencies. 2. Have the students choose elements from each list and write them into the relevant gaps (color- coded) to create meaningful statements. 3. The third space is open for the students to create a statement of their own. Students should be encouraged to write longer sentences in the third slot. Time required : 10~15 minutes OPTION Є SPEAKING/DISCUSSION The teacher can ask individual students to read out one of their statements, which can be written on the blackboard and discussed as a group. (e.g. “Raise your hand if you agree with this opinion.”) Time Required : 5~10 minutes Tip : If collating student’s written responses using Google Forms, it might be a good idea to have each student type their name before or after their statement, since all sentences are listed together and students sometimes cannot identify their own work!

EXPRESSION 2 ←Where several words or phrases are written in a vertical list, students can choose from the list (in this example, students should choose between the phrases “My feeling” and “My guess”). Dotted lines around a word or phrase indicates that it is optional (in this example, “like to” is optional).

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In the next expression task, students continue their description of tendencies in Japanese society, but this time we want them to add themselves to the picture. That is, we want them to compare themselves to the group they are describing. Do they have the same basic habits and opinions as that group, or are they different in some respect? The model sentence is given in a visual form that has been used in Alma conversation textbooks. Re- using some key vocabulary and phrases from Expression 1, in the color-coded boxes, students can generate several statements from a single basic structure. Again, it might be advantageous to write a simple example on the board before having students write their own sentences. Example sentences for both Expression 1 and Expression 2 can be found in the Teacher’s Manual. Time required : 5 ~10 minutes

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PART 2: People in Other Cultures In the second part of each unit we widen our view and look at how people in other cultures answered Ibunka Survey questions on the same topic. These were selected to give just a hint of the diversity of cultures outside of Japan, and discourage the simplistic “them vs. us” thinking we want our students to avoid. We are talking about the habits, preferences and experiences of individuals from certain foreign cultures, and not generalizations about entire cultures or countries. Wherever possible, we chose responses that highlighted cultural differences among foreign cultures. American and French cultures are often compared, for two reasons. Firstly, this project has been deeply inYluenced by the work of ethnologist Raymonde Carroll, who compared these two cultures in various aspects of daily life, in her book Cultural misunderstandings : the French-American experience . Secondly, many of the respondents to the Ibunka Survey happened to be from these two cultural backgrounds, so comparisons surfaced naturally.

Realizing that all foreign cultures, and in particular all Western cultures, are not alike, is an important step for our students. They can adopt a wider view of cultural difference; comparing their own culture to more than one foreign culture on a single topic makes for a more three-dimensional way of thinking.

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How Do I Use the Comprehension 1 & 2 Activities?

What is Comprehension 1 & 2 ? This section is the Yirst step in which students can engage with the Ibunka Survey responses. They start by reading the responses (or listening to them; each response has been recorded in three native English accents). Then the teacher checks their comprehension using traditional true/false questions and gap-Yill exercises. Another phase of reading will be done later in the Discussion activity, when students will be asked to reread these responses and think about them from a different perspective. How do I use these activities? COMPREHENSION 1 1. Have students read through the questions from the Ibunka Survey, and the responses from various individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Note that the wording may sometimes be a little more academic than that of the Warm-up Survey, so difYicult vocabulary and phrases should be checked as necessary. Students may read silently or be nominated by the teacher to read aloud. 2. Next, students answer the true/false comprehension questions, which are based on these Yirst few responses. Check answers with the class.

If teaching online, student answers can be submitted using the appropriate Google Form available to be copied from the website. Time required: 10~15 minutes COMPREHENSION 2 1. Have students read the next question and its responses, Yilling in the appropriate vocabulary from the list for each response. Check answers as a class. Time required: 10~15 minutes

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How Do I Use the Discussion Activity?

What is Discussion ? The Discussion section is a chance for students to comment on one or more of the responses they have just read, using guided language forms. Classroom experience has taught us that intermediate-level students are considerably more motivated to answer questions which force them to choose one item from a

list than they are open-ended discussion points. That is why Which of these responses was most interesting (shocking, relatable, etc.) to you (and why)? is a much more effective prompt than the standard instruction: Now write a paragraph about these responses. How do I use this activity? 1. Have students look back over all the responses on the Yirst two pages of Part Two. Have each student think about which one of the responses they found to be most interesting (or surprising, or relatable, etc). This is an effective way of having students reread a piece of text. 2. Students write a Yirst sentence using the name of the respondent and how they felt about the reponses, then a sentence or two explaining their reason for choosing it. Direct their attention to the example sentence fragment, as a starting point. They can also look back at Expression 1 and 2 in Part One for more useful vocabulary and phrases. → Example sentence: (Unit 2: Sleep and Rest): I found Miki’s response to be the most relatable. In my experience working in a Japanese company, I was surprised to see people sometimes sleeping in meetings. 3. Have students compare and discuss their answers in pairs or small groups. Time required: 15~20 minutes

OPTION Є WRITING/SPEAKING Once all students have finished writing, nominate individual students to read out their answers. These could be written on the blackboard (or a shared document if you are teaching online) and discussed as a class. Time Required : 5~10 minutes

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How Do I Use the Culture Shock Activity? What is Culture Shock ( Comprehension 3 )? The Yinal reading comprehension section presents several responses to another question from the Ibunka Survey . In most units, the responses are from two people who have experienced some kind of culture shock related to the topic. These sections are called,

appropriately, Culture Shock. In three units of the textbook (1,9 and 10) there is no reference to culture shock, so the activity is titled Comprehension 3. How do I use this activity? 1. Have students answer the true or false questions in the same manner as Comprehension 1.

Time Required : 5~10 minutes

OPTION Є WRITING/DISCUSSION/SPEAKING As an additional writing or discussion exercise for the Culture Shock sections, you might like to have students think about the following questions, discuss them in pairs or small groups, or write a short text in response. What was the main reason for this person’s culture shock? Is there anything that they could have said or done beforehand to lessen the shock? Time Required : 15~30 minutes

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How Do I Use the Creativity Activity?

What is Creativity ? If you have the time and the inclination, a Yinal exercise for each unit is for students to create a short manga (comic) to illustrate an example of intercultural communication (or miscommunication). This could be based on one of the responses they read in the unit or the student’s actual experience or imagination. How do I use this activity? When having students draw manga in class, it is useful to point out the following before starting. • If students are going to be evaluated, it will be on the quality of the story and the use of English - not on their artistic merit. Stick Yigures are absolutely Yine, as long as the story they are showing is clear. • To develop a good story, a rule of thumb is to use at least one text (either a “speech bubble” or “thought bubble”) in each of the four koma (squares). • For online classes, students can take photos of their work and submit them to the teacher through the relevant Google Form. Time Required: 5~10 minutes OPTION Є Submit to the Ibunka! Manga competition! Alma Publishing is inviting all students who use Ibunka to enter their most interesting manga into a competition at the end of each semester. The best examples of student manga will be displayed in a gallery within the STUDENT section of the Ibunka website.

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ONE STEP FURTHER

How Do I Use the One Step Further Section?

What is One Step Further ? Depending on factors such as your students’ background, interest level, and English ability, some of the topics will resonate with them more than others. If a topic sparks your students’ interest, and your syllabus or class time allows, there are optional extension activities for each topic, which give students a deeper look at the cultural patterns that were hinted at in the core lessons. The content is made up of additional responses to the Ibunka Survey. Students read through this extra content, looking for signs of certain cultural tendencies. How do I use this section? 1. First, guide students through the explanation of the cultural patterns that they are supposed to look for. Most units have two patterns, which are the two ends of a single continuum. For example, do people prefer to blend into the group when introducing themselves (Cultural Pattern A), or do they rather prefer to stand

out by emphasizing their uniqueness (Cultural Pattern B)? This is the Yirst real instance in the textbook of “cultural analysis”, as such. To make sure that students have grasped the concepts, you might point them to some relevant responses that they have already covered in the core lesson. 2. Read through response No. 1, which already has some words and phrases highlighted. Point these out to students, and show how they relate to either one of the cultural patterns. → This is a good time to tell them that there are always several ways to indicate which parts of the text hints at which cultural pattern: whole sentences can be highlighted, or just words. It doesn’t matter much which approach is used.

3. Next, have students prepare two differently-coloured highlighter pens (or regular pens or pencils if they do not have highlighters). In the book, the default colors for Cultural Pattern A and for Cultural Pattern B are yellow and blue. You might need to tell your students that if they don’t have the two exact same colors as in the book, they can decide on alternative colors! 4. Have students read through the remaining responses and highlight words, phrases or sentences in the same way. This is an effective pair activity, as students can explain and negotiate their choices. Direct them to the vocabulary translations if needed. →When this activity is done in the context of online

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teaching (or given as homework), students can type words and phrases into a Google Form for submission. 5. Finally, students can write a short general

paragraph on the topic. They can touch upon what they learned, what surprised them, or how much they agree or disagree with the responses in the book.

In the Teacher’s Manual you will Yind some suggested choices for the ONE STEP FURTHER Activities. Please bear in mind that these are not the only deYinitive ways to complete these activities; students can choose single words, short phrases, or even whole sentences. There are many ways to cut this text into parts. The most important thing is to have students make logical connections between cultural patterns and the language that describes them.

Suggested Answers for ONE STEP FURTHER Activities (Google Form)

Suggested Answers for ONE STEP FURTHER Activities (Textbook)

Time Required: 30~90 minutes

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