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JAPANESE LEARNING DISCOURSE COMMUNITY CHUANDONG HU UWP 1.

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Presentation on theme: "JAPANESE LEARNING DISCOURSE COMMUNITY CHUANDONG HU UWP 1."— Presentation transcript:

1 JAPANESE LEARNING DISCOURSE COMMUNITY CHUANDONG HU UWP 1

2 WHAT IS JAPANESE LEARNING DISCOURSE COMMUNITY The Japanese culture is one that has evolved over years and generally being accepted in Asia. Japanese culture enjoys high popular among high school students in China. More and more high school students are willing to study Japanese language. The community is dedicated to helping those who are willing to learn Japanese get the chance to study Japanese language. Our common goal in this community is to improve everyone’s Japanese language learning to make sure every member have abilities to understand Japanese.

3 HOW THE COMMUNITY IS FOUND When I was in my high school, there was a Japanese teacher called Ayumi, a resident of Tokyo. She has lived in China for almost three years and she can also speak fluent Chinese too. Her job is to teach us learn some Japanese culture and a little Japanese language. However, most time she will discuss the Japanese anime with us because she thought this is another way for us to know Japanese culture. As the fans of Japanese anime, her topics actually raised my interest, and also my good friend Wilson’s interest. We usually go to Ayumi’s office after class to talk about Japanese anime with her. With long time communication with Ayumi, we are interested in Japanese language and Japanese culture. Wilson and I hope that Ayumi can teach us learn Japanese and we hope one day, we can travel to Japan and communicate with Japanese residents naturally. So, the Japanese learning discourse community is found by us. Ayumi is like the leader in the community and Wilson and I are first members of the community.

4 HOW WE COMMUNICATE When the community was first found, the members are only three and we just spent after class time learning Japanese face-to-face with Ayumi. Generally, some other students in our school noticed our behaviour and wanted to join us too. The number of members keep increasing so we have to give up face-to-face learning because Ayumi’s office cannot hold so many students at the same time. Ayumi decided to start a group message online. It is the talk like the messages sent by one are shown to everyone in the group and they can get the messages immediately. Although this kind of chat is not efficient compared to face-to-face communication, it is the best solution to deal with these too large number of community members. Moreover, the group message allows us to have more chances to communicate with our members. It is easier for us to exchange our information and ideas through members. An additional advantage for our group message is it allows us to have communication no matter how far we are. After graduating from high school, the community members all go to different colleges in different places. The group message perfectly solves this problem and we do not have to worry about the distance between us.

5 WHAT WE LEARN The level in this community is super uneven. Most members join this community just because they like watching Japanese anime. So they just know little about Japanese. They are just like 10-month-baby who can say few words. Few members are going to Japanese college. So they have to study harder than most members. As the result, the level of these few members are much higher than most members. Due to this situation, our leader, Ayumi, always has trouble with what to teach through group message. With few weeks of deep thinking, she decided to teach different things every week and she explained that she hoped that we can learn Japanese in more aspects, not only in one aspect. So, what we learn totally depends on Ayumi’s thinking. For example, sometimes we will learn the art of the word, sometimes we will learn the Japanese article and sometimes we will discuss the Japanese anime. I do not know if this way of learning could improve our Japanese learning. However, at least I know every member in this community enjoys Ayumi‘s teaching because they all think this way of teaching is unique and funny.

6 DIFFICULTIES OF LEARNING JAPANESE As a Chinese, certainly I will face a lot of difficulties. But the most difficult thing for me is the art of writing. There is a point of texture and stroke speed is the hard part. I had a lot of practice before I could even produce the right character. According to Gosden (1996), it can take over a hundred tries to make the desired character. The process of crafting the work is in itself an art as much as the final work. However, my good friend, Wilson does not think so. He thinks that the characters of Japanese words are similar to those of Chinese words. It is easy for him to recognize the words. He also told me that once he travelled to Japan. When he read the newspaper there, though he could not know the meaning of every word, he could know the general meaning of the whole article written on the newspaper.

7 DIFFICULTIES OF LEARNING JAPANESE According to my observation, most members are not like me, have trouble with the art of the words. Most of them think the pronunciation is the hardest part in Japanese learning. Ayumi also refers it as the hardest part in Japanese learning because Japanese language is divided into two parts. One part is the local language and another part is the language from other countries, like English, French and Chinese. But with the long time use in Japan, these language turn to be a new pronunciation in Japan which is totally different from the original pronunciation. These refresh languages are also one part of Japanese language. Sometimes we heard these language from the Japanese anime, we all felt weird and uncomfortable with these pronunciation.

8 THE WAY OF LEARNING JAPANESE I have asked Ayumi some good ways of learning Japanese on my own other than watching Japanese anime considering the level of the community is far behind me. Ayumi said reading Japanese books is a good way because Japanese culture is preserved in Japanese books. She recommends that Books like Etiquette Guide to Japan by Boye Lafayette and Japanese Culture by H. Paul Varley are examples that carry on the culture. She also suggests that I should try and participate in Japanese socialization. She hopes that I can go to Japan once,live there for few months, and participate in local Japanese life. And she said this is the fastest way to learn Japanese well. I think her words are reasonable and I have dreamed for few years that I can travel to Japan one day. So I decide to go to Japan for few weeks during Summer time.

9 LIKE MOST AND HATE MOST I have interviewed Ayumi few weeks ago and asked two questions that what she likes most and what she hate most about Japanese language. She could not tell anything about the what she likes most about Japanese language, but she is willing to share her “hate” part. She said that the Japanese train themselves to have few signs of body language. If one does not have a trained eye, they will find it difficult to read them. For examples, in meetings the Japanese sit in a formal upright posture with little reaction or emotion being seen. Ayumi explains that they are taught to be the epitome of subtlety and nuance. This aspect causes a huge dilemma when dealing with the Japanese. According to Maynard (1990), there is a difference between what the Japanese feel and what they express. What they feel and what they express are often contradictory. Ayumi thought the body language is kind of deceive because their reactions do not match their real thinkings.

10 THE THRESHOLD OF OUR COMMUNITY The threshold for our community is quite low. Ayumi is a kind person and she found this community to help those who are willing to learn Japanese improve their abilities to study Japanese. That means if you have enthusiasm to learn Japanese, no matter what level of Japanese you learn, you are welcome to join our community. By the way,,members are free to leave our community at any time if they feel they are quite familiar with Japanese or think our community does not have any help on their Japanese learning. However, most of us would like to stay in this community because our community is like a big family. We all share our ideas in group message and have communication every day. We learn from Ayumi and we improve our Japanese together.

11 CONCLUSION In conclusion, the Japanese learning discourse community was a success in my mind. I am able to learn the various ways to learn Japanese and learn different kinds of knowledges about Japanese language every week.I faced some difficulties but with the help of communication with Ayumi and other members, I slowly progressed to understanding. The Japanese learning discourse community improve my Japanese learning indeed.

12 REFERENCE Gosden, H. (1996). Verbal reports of Japanese novices' research writing practices in English. Journal of second language writing, 5(2), 109-128. Maynard, S. K. (1990). Conversation management in contrast: Listener response in Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(3), 397-412.


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