Emi Ochiai Ahn
Japanese Faculty
Mesa Community College
The Japanese program at Mesa Community College (MCC) was inaugurated in 1987. It started with JPN115, Beginning Japanese Conversation I. Adding a variety of courses and more faculty members, as of fall 2000, MCC offers nine courses (JPN101, 102, 201, 202, 115, and 225) and serves approximately 130 students through four instructors.
The Japanese program at MCC is not considered small for a Japanese program, especially in a community college, but it has always been under pressure to increase enrollment. To offer on-line Japanese courses could be one way to boost enrollment since we can target a wider variety of students beyond geographic and time conflicts. MCC has started to offer Spanish on-line courses and has been receiving an extremely positive reaction from students.
Many thanks go to:
Professor Steve Budge, MCC
Ms. Keiko Schneider, Saboten Web Design
Professor Satoru Shinagawa, Kapi’olani Community College
Mr. Ken Costello, Center for Teaching and Learning, MCC
Mr. Charles Wong, Center for Teaching and Learning, MCC
On-line courses are perfect for students who cannot come to campus due to distance and time conflicts, but they require students to exert much stronger self-discipline than F2F courses (For F2F, refer to Ms. Schneider’s page.). Therefore, it may be necessary to screen the students who want to take Japanese on-line. For this purpose, the instructor can prepare a public-accessible website, which includes 1) a self-diagnostic test to check if the student’s personality and learning style are suitable for one-line courses 2) a self-diagnostic test to check if he/she can set required hours aside for this course 3) if he/she has an access to a suitable computer 4) detailed instruction on how to download free and necessary programs 5) detailed instruction on how to make his/her computer Japanese capable 6) training session on how to type in Japanese. This may take as long as a week and has to be completed before the student registers.
The format of the course should give flexibility to students, yet it should be structured enough that they can easily follow it. Since one semester usually consists of 15 weeks at MCC, a weekly rather than a daily schedule for students is implemented. Thus, students can plan their study time however they like during the week, but by the end of the week, they need to accomplish the given goals.
It is important to bring the on-line students’ skill up to the level of F2F students, not only because on-line students will earn the same number of credit hours and the same credentials after they complete the course, but also because they may want to switch to an F2F course for JPN102.
There is a misconception that on-line courses are easier than F2F courses and require students less time. The number of hours that is expected for students to spend for the on-line course is three hours a day, five days a week for 15 weeks. This is exactly the number of hours that the instructor expects students in F2F courses to spend (one hour in class plus two hours for preparation and review outside the class). The period of 15 weeks does not include the time for the instructor to check if the student is suitable for the course (See II, A for details for preparation for the course).
It seems to be very natural that on-line students have less opportunity to listen to the target language since if they were in the F2F class, they would be constantly listening to both teacher and classmates. Consequently, on-line students are not only assigned to listen to the tapes that accompany their textbooks and to work on the listening exercises in their workbooks, they are assigned additional listening exercises.
Just as in F2F courses, oral tests should be given to on-line students. In oral tests, students’ pronunciation, ability to make questions and answers appropriately, and fluency are evaluated. In F2F courses, we use interviews between instructor and student, dialogues between students, and speech presentations. For the on-line courses, the interview between instructor and student is possible if we implement an oral test on the phone. By this method, pronunciation, ability to make questions and answers, and fluency can be checked.
However, since it is hard for instructors to make an appointment to conduct the phone exam frequently, the recording of students’ short statements to be submitted via e-mail can be added to evaluate some aspects of students’ oral skill. This method is much more flexible than an oral test on the phone, so it can be frequently done.
Speech presentations in F2F courses are usually done in the following way: The student 1) writes his/her own speech 2) revises his/her speech according to the instructor’s advice 3) memorizes the speech, and 4) presents the speech in class. In on-line courses, steps 1-3 can be easily done by exchanging e-mails or faxes. For step 4, videotaping is a possible solution. Each student videotapes his/her speech and mails it to the instructor.
Special sessions are necessary to let students learn and practice how to type in the Japanese word processor since many communications between teacher and students and among students will be done on line (See II, A.).
In teaching Japanese, it is important to teach handwriting skill as well as typing in Japanese. In F2F courses, we often use the blackboard in the classroom to reemphasize on the stroke orders of Japanese characters and to let students improve their handwriting skill. Also, we require students to submit their handwritten compositions not only to check their grammar and content but also to check their penmanship.
On-line students should also improve their hand writing skill by practicing writing in their workbook specially designed for the Japanese writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and Chinese characters). For accountability and feedback, they will turn in their assignments by fax. For speed, it may be effective to give timed writing exercises, but students must discipline themselves to do those exercises to prepare for the final.
There are some websites available to show stroke order of characters. Also, using Microsoft’s Powerpoint, the instructor can easily show the stroke order of simple characters.
The techniques that are necessary to make communication work, including interjections, gestures, and manners such as bowing, are often hard to see and understand in reading the written dialogues or in listening to the audio-taped conversations. It is the best to just demonstrate. In F2F courses, the instructor easily demonstrates by acting in front of students, but in on-line courses, the best way is to show a video.
A synchronous way of using of asynchronous tools may help students to improve their promptness in responsive communication (See more information on "Asynchronous," "Synchronous" and "Chat" on Ms. Schneider’s page.). For example, the instructor can require students to visit Class Bulletin Board (Refer to "BBS/Bulletin Board/discussion board" on Ms. Schneider’s page.) during the given hour so that they can exchange their questions and answers during the time.
Students can get great benefit from sharing their thoughts and teaching each other. In on-line courses, since students are probably not on the web at the same time, they can use a bulletin board to post their questions and suggestions in order to encourage and communicate with each other.
Japanese culture may be introduced and discussed with visual aids in F2F courses. In on-line courses, taking advantage of students’ worldwide connection, the instructor should provide links to websites on Japanese culture, such as Ms. Schneider’s Bookmark (http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/).
The student who registers for any on-line course at MCC is required to obtain and use his/her school e-mail address, identification name, and password to enter the designated site for the on-line course. This way, the school can avoid outsiders entering the site and the problems that they possibly cause.
The use of the phone for oral test(s) in almost all cases is one way to prevent students’ dishonesty.
Asking students to turn in videotaped presentations may be another way to ensure that each student that is taking the course is her/himself.
Only once a semester, the on-line students are required to come to campus to take their final tests to ensure the on-line students’ identity. At MCC, the Assessment Center proctors final tests for on-line students. Students go to the center on the designated day and time. The center requires students to present their photo IDs to identify them before they take their tests.
If the student lives out of the county, the instructor can ask local public institutions such as the public library or Testing Center at a university to proctor the test.
WebCT is an on-line course-making program that MCC supports. (See "WebCT" on Ms. Schneider’s page.). With MS Global IME Japanese (Refer to "Global IME" on Ms. Schneider’s page.), you can type in Japanese if you access this program through MS IE, but if you use Netscape, you may come across some problem. For safety, both Pacific Software’s Kanjikit 2000 (See "KanjiKit 2000" on Ms. Schneider’s page.) and MS Global IME Japanese have been used to develop this on-line course.
O’Reilly’s Webboard (For more information see Ms. Schneider’s page.) is another program that MCC supports for faculty use. This program lets you create a class bulletin board and conduct live chat in English. With MS Global IME Japanese or Kanjikit 2000, you can type in Japanese to bulletin boards (See "BBS/Bulletin Board/discussion board" on Ms. Schneider’s page.), but compatibility between different platforms is unknown. With the bulletin board function, students can exchange their sentence in Japanese if students are on line simultaneously. O’Reilly says that Webboard is not multi-lingual, so live chat possibilities are, at the moment, unpromising.
The combination of Powerpoint 2000 plus Kanjikit 2000 has been used to create the courseware for this course.
It is important to remember that students who will take the on-line courses may not have the best computers available and that technologies are only means of teaching and learning, not their purpose. Therefore, it is essential that we make the best effort to minimize the technological problems that could occur. To do so, it may be a good idea to depend on the use of low technology for a large part of this course.
The on-line course that has been developing at MCC depends heavily on textbooks and workbooks just as F2F Japanese courses at MCC do. The detailed weekly schedule included in the JPN101 on-line site goes along with the chapters of our main textbook, Yookoso-An Invitation to Contemporary Japanese (second edition, Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku, McGraw-Hill, 1999). On-line students are required to read grammar explanations and do exercises in the textbook, following the detailed weekly schedule. Students are also required to listen to CDs and do exercises in the workbook that accompany the textbook, using their CD players.
Students are required to take the oral test on the phone, send their hand-written compositions by fax, and mail their own videotaped presentation.
To avoid problems, related, for instance, to modem speed or computer quality, that may occur while on-line students are downloading large files, MCC has started to create its own courseware CD to be used off-line by on-line students (See "Courseware/infrastructure" on Ms. Schneider’s page.). The CD uses Microsoft’s Powerpoint, copyright free materials, and audio, video, and print materials that we have secured permission to use.
This on-line course is just at the planning stage. Nevertheless, the use of a custom CD and other low-tech materials may make this course very feasible and effective. Although on-line students may not get much spontaneous interaction, they can review videos and audio materials over and over if they want. Not only does the geographic and time flexibility help students work around their responsibilities, it can allow them to study when and where they feel sharpest.
MCC is hoping to conduct the pilot class in summer 2001 and officially offers this course in fall 2001. After that, research on the on-line courses comparing them to FTF courses will be necessary to verify the effectiveness of on-line courses.