Course Syllabus

JAPN 1020 Elementary Japanese II

Course Description

This course is a continuation of JAPN 1010 and provides additional exposure to the Japanese language and the cultures of Japanese-speaking peoples. It is designed for students who have completed JAPN 1010 with a C- or better, or for students with equivalent experience. During the course, students continue to develop basic oral and listening communication skills by participating in activities that require them to use Japanese in a variety of situations. As a result of developing these skills, they also acquire the ability to read and write Japanese at a basic level. Students learn to communicate about topics that are most familiar to them (e.g., self, family, home, school, daily and recent activities), and they learn to appreciate ways of life different from their own. This course is interactive with a focus on learner participation, basic conversation practice in Japanese, and additional focus on reading and writing. Successful completion of this course fulfills the foreign language requirement for the Associate of Arts degree at Snow College.

Justification

This course satisfies the foreign language requirement for the Associate of Arts degree at Snow College. It is also a prerequisite for intermediate and advanced study of the language. Students are introduced to the language, cultures, and values of Japanese-speaking peoples. Learning Japanese, particularly in combination with studies in other fields such as art, music, philosophy, history, business, medicine, political science, social science, and technology, can provide a valuable and employable life resource.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to understand everyday Japanese words and phrases. They will be able to answer questions about themselves, their personal experiences, and their surroundings with greater capacity.
2. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to understand familiar words, phrases, and some more advanced sentences, building upon those reading skills acquired in JAPN 1010.
3. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to interact with each other using words, phrases, and some memorized expressions. They will be able to answer simple questions on familiar topics and form questions to create a more realistic dialogue, while expanding the range of their ability beyond the beginner level. They will be capable of describing events not only in the present, but in the past as well, with the ability to speak with anticipation of future events, as well as conjecture upon things that would happen given a certain set of circumstances.
4. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to provide information about themselves and their immediate surroundings using words, phrases, and some memorized expressions. They will also acquire information from others by forming proper sentences and questions, including topics that address events in the present, past, and future.
5. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to provide some basic information on familiar topics in lists, phrases, and memorized expressions.
6. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to seek opportunities to learn about and experience new cultures in class as well as outside of class.
7. Upon successful completion of JAPN 1020, students will be able to demonstrate a basic knowledge of cultural traditions, customs, and values in one or more Japanese-speaking countries.

Course Content

Through lecture, class discussion and activities, students may learn and demonstrate: Describing multiple events; making a polite request; asking for and granting permission; explaining reasons; offering help; progressive actions; physical attributes; purpose of movement; counting people; informal speech in the present and past tense; describing and quoting one’s thoughts; one’s abilities; the subject particle “ga”; describing people using verbs; present perfect in the negatives; comparison between two items or more; indicating the same item using “no”; expressing one’s intention; changes form the past; describing the means of actions; learning approximately 100 Chinese characters; cultural perspectives, diversity and daily life in Japan. This content is delivered through interactive lecture, multimedia presentation, partner and group work, and instructor modeling of concepts.