Hello everyone, next year I finally graduate from high school. Luckily for me I allready finished my senior paper this year, but I still have my "Senior Cultimating Project" left for me to do. I have only two real classes this year, Literature and Goverment. Since my projects and papers are based on linguistic aquisition I have asked and recieved permission to teach a non-credit class over my last year.

I would have probably two class hours a week but since my school is online I would like to use PDF's and Youtube to my advantage and create an online class. The advantage is that anyone who is interested could join the class without being a high school student. Also, if the class is too hard or if the student allready studied some Japanese they could go at their own pace.

Of course I would have native speakers check my work and lessons and have the support of Lang-8. I have taken JOI classes, college classes and one high school class at a different school and I think I could create a better learning environment especially since the focus isn't on the credit.

I plan on creating 28 PDF (with seperate audio) lessons for each month with a collection of projects at the end of each month such as a discussion or writing a New Years Card. I would also create a youtube account and a skype to create a strong sense of community and to motivate people to study.
I would really appreciate it if you could look over my rough study guide and give me some advice. Please note that this is tentative and is subject to change.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Project Name: 日本GO!
Average study time per day:
30 min. Active study
30 min. Review
(Optional) 30 min. Activities (There are probably around 4 for each month.)

First 6 months:

1st Month
ひらがな
カタカナ
*500 words and expressions

2nd Month
500 words
は が も の や を に へ で と か よ ね な から より Word Markers (basics only)
です,でした,じゃなありません,だ (etc.) Being Verbs I
あります　います 　　　Being Verbs II
ますVerb
ましょう　でしょう　ませんか　

—たい　たがる
—にいく
やすい　にくい

3rd Month
**100 漢字
500 words
て
てもいい　へもよろしい
てはいけない　てはダメ
ている 　ている間に　ていない　てある　てない
てから　Verbまえ
てください
てみる
ておく
てあげる　てくれる　てもらう　ていだだく（いただけー）
てすみません
てしまう
てよかった
て初めて

4th Month
200 漢字
500 words
−た
たら　たらどう
たり　たりする
たことがある
なさい　すぎる　ながら
ために
つもり

5th Month
200 漢字
600 words
ない　ないで
ないでください
なくちゃいけません
なくてもいい
くなる　くする
っぽい　らしい　的
Adjectives and Adverbs　(Conjugation)

6th Month
200 漢字
500 words
し　なら　のに　
ほう　よう　ような　ように　ようになる　ようにする
ば　えば　ばよかった
させる　られる　させられる
はず　そう　みたい
という　ときく　(etc.)
かどうか
と　とき　といいです
なら
ほしい
かもしれない

*Vocabulary won't be necessary for completion of a month.
** Kanji will be taught in a semi-Heisig manner. We will use similar techniques to remember the characters but we will learn how to use the characters soon after. The first 100 characters will focus on the different radicals. For example 馬 will be taught within the 3rd Month in contrast to Heisig.

Second Latter of the Year:
These classes won't teach in the same manner as the first 6 months and will simply be focused on using the language and learning new words. Kanji will not be forced but instead furigana/ruby text will be used. Students will be encouraged to learn new characters on their own.

Month 1 topic: Martial arts
Goal-learn new vocabulary and learn general knowledge about martial arts
Main Activity-learn a kata in Japanese

Month 2 topic: Anime
Goal-go through 2 animation films and 4 episodes from common shows.
(We will probably use shows that we will be able to rent at the time.)
Main Activity-create your own Japanese film-short or blog entry

Month 3 topic: Manga
Goal-read various manga and develop reading skills
Main Activity-draw your own cartoon and label it in Japanese

Month 4 topic: (Fictional) Literature
Goal-read folklore tales such as ももたろ and learn about common tales in Japan
Main Activity-write your own short folklore tale

Month 5 topic: Cooking
Goal-learn about various food in Japan
Main Activity-cook some basic Japanese foods (onigiri, tenpura, etc.)

Month 6 topic: Calligraphy
Goal-learn about various forms of calligraphy
Main Activity-writing poems and 四字熟語

Month 5 topic: Origami
Goal-learn about the history and the process of origami
Main Activity- fold the most prominent origami figures

Month 7 JLPT Preparation
Goal-prepare for NJLPT levels N4 and N3
Main Activity-take the test (More practical than fun)

(Please point out any typos so I can correct them.)

*bump*

Not related: are you sure you're just about to graduate high school? How did that happen? It seems as though you're probably a college student or graduate.

Related: That sounds an admirably ambitious project. I'll focus mainly on the second half of the course. It seems you've chosen some material (anime, manga, literature) which are absolutely huge topics and I think a month is a good amount of time to spend introducing people to those topics. It seems a bit excessive to spend a month on origami and martial arts though. If it were me, I'd spend the first month of the second half of the year focussing on history, or perhaps just ancient history. Then next month modern history. Then martial arts and origami would be introduced as part of those topics perhaps, or maybe each get a week later. I do appreciate that you're going for themed months.

Blahah, Thank you for your comment!

I'm a junior in high school right now and starting this September I will become a senior.
I have 4-5 months to prepare the classes and I have loads of time during the actual school year. My Japanese isn't amazingly awesome but it's mostly JLPT2. I have a long way to go but this is meant to be a learning experience as well.

Your'e right, origami is a very short topic. I needed another filler that would appeal to a large crowd. But dividing history would be better. As for matial arts, there are a lot of martial art groups in my general area and I assume that 10-15 students will be actively practicing karate or judo(u). I think going over the history and the rules of karate would be interesting for them. In addition, perhaps some students will start karate because of their Japanese interests.

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it.

gyuujuice Wrote:Blahah, Thank you for your comment!

I'm a junior in high school right now and starting this September I will become a senior.
I have 4-5 months to prepare the classes and I have loads of time during the actual school year. My Japanese isn't amazingly awesome but it's mostly JLPT2. I have a long way to go but this is meant to be a learning experience as well.

Your'e right, origami is a very short topic. I needed another filler that would appeal to a large crowd. But dividing history would be better. As for matial arts, there are a lot of martial art groups in my general area and I assume that 10-15 students will be actively practicing karate or judo(u). I think going over the history and the rules of karate would be interesting for them. In addition, perhaps some students will start karate because of their Japanese interests.

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it.

Personally I'm not a fan of how you divided up the topics--I'd probably get impatient with a broad focus on stuff like that for a month at a time. If that were a 'syllabus' I was reviewing at the onset of a semester, I'd groan internally. ;p

You could try having an overlapping set of types of media and broad areas of focus within each month, but have them centered around themes, perhaps a group of topics selected by students, of generalizable interest. For example, a certain sport or type of relationship?

Will you be using an SRS? ;p

Personally in my own self-studies, I've developed a schedule where each day is different, alternating from certain types of media staggered a few times a week, divided between acquisitions and preparations (materials, strategies, tools) and reviews, input and output, structured and unstructured sessions, specific and non-specific, etc. It's much more complicated than that, but then again it's very refined and personal/subjective as well... and that's just for Japanese. ;p

And I guess there's the sort of self-study regimens for beginners we've discussed elsewhere on the forum, but I guess you've already looked at those and thought about your own preferences and what might be best to work into a class for others.

nest0r,

"Will you be using an SRS? ;p"
Of course. ^__^ I will make vocabulary and example sentences in Smartfm. (Smartfm is a lot more appealing to most people even though I personally prefer Anki.) Students will have to edit their kanji deck to fit their learning but most of the decks will be made beforehand.

Well I wanted the send half of the year to be slow. Many students will join late and perhaps some will get behind. The second semester isn't scheduled the same way. There will probably be 4 groups of students in different topics depending on the efficiency of the class. It's meant to be less itimidating. But I see your point and will try to make it more diverse.

Icecream,

"i even kinda wished i could be in high school & transfer to your school for a year, reading that!!! It looks wicked!!!"

Well my class is going to be online and ALL the materials will be posted on the blog/website. And I'm making a youtube account just for the class. You can join the class -- or even better, help sponser it.

I'm still not sure what to do about origami. Maybe I will have just one or two weeks for that topic. But cooking is a major and interesting subject so I would want to keep a whole month for that topic. Your'e totally right, cooking should go before the manga-anime topics. Thank you!

"The only other thing i thought was that it'd also be nice in the first half to introduce some well used phrases that they'll come across in the second half of the course, as well as some words (for instance, manga & anime often use a lot of well known phrases). And yeah, throwing little bits of cultural information in in the first half would be quite nice to keep people interested too, though it doesn't have to be whole topics like in the second half."

OK, I was thinking that I would incoperate some culture lessons through the dialog and projects in the first semester. For example in unit one there would be a post discussion about introductions. In Unit 2 there would be a culture lesson on commerce. (like no debit cards etc.)

One major problem is that... I've never been to Japan. So I really don't have ANY experience other than my exchange student friends.

If, when you do run the project, you have an IRC or Skype room running 24/7 for supporting the students I'll be happy to loiter in there to give any help I can. Let us know details when it all gets set up

Blahah, great idea! I would really appreciate it!
After my finals and I am organized I will set up the website. I have started some of the sheets but I have one main week of school left.

Of course I will update you guys when I get things started! Thank you everyone!