Japanese Language, Food and Ethics: Using Japanese language across the curriculum

​​Project Summary: 

• ​​This GLE project was conducted in an advanced level Japanese language course designed in the FALC (Foreign Language across the Curriculum) framework, where a content course and a language course are offered concurrently to discuss common themes. In Spring 2021, the course JPN 395 was offered in conjunction with REL 244: Religion and Ethics in Japanese Foodscapes. The topics included Food and Heroism, Food and Discrimination, Food and Nationalism, as well as Food and Contamination. The class discussed these topics in dialogue with Japanese texts and audio-visual materials. The GLE project allowed DePaul students to meet with students from Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan over Zoom to discuss the questions posed by instructors on these topics.  They also collaborated on DePaul students’ poetry projects. The poetry writing projects (one English translation and two Japanese original poems) integrated the students’ learning and analysis of the topics in the form of poems. The dialogue with Hosei students and the feedback DePaul students received from their partners at Hosei University were reflected in the final versions of their poems.​
  

​​​​​​Project Length:

• ​8 weeks​

​Technology Tools Used:

• ​Zoom
• Padlet
• LINE​​

Interaction Mode:

• ​Synchronous​​

Learning Outcomes:

• Students built advanced Japanese proficiency.
• Students understood individual and national views of food and society from each participant and in each country.
• ​Students addressed issues related to food and found solutions for what each can do.

Faculty Feedback:

• "This was the first attempt to integrate FLAC and GLE in Japanese, and it worked beautifully through internal and external multidisciplinary, multilinguistic, multicultural, collaborations. Discussing issues related to food was a great opportunity for students to share their personal, cultural and collective views in intriguing yet sensitive manners." ~Nobuko Chikamatsu​​

To read more about this project and other scholarship from the faculty members, please click here​.​​​

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