Language Resident/Assistant Name:
Kozue Matsumoto
Day and Date:
Tuesday November 24, 2020
Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class):
Advanced
Class theme/topics discussed:
- Last class: kanji games
Goal of the class:
- Guess how to read unusual kanji
How did you structure the class?
- How are you doing? Hanging in there? Good news if any??? (7 min)
- Hawaiian Thanksgiving dishes – lots of Asian food included
- Guess and read the kanji (45 min)
- Veggies
- Fruits
- Things in the water
- Family names
- Most complicated kanji (10 min)
- Some legendary mysterious kanji
- Officially registered real kanji
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Class agreement, breakup rooms
Zoom, white board
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
- We talked how we feel at the end of the semester. Since everything happened online at home, there is not a huge difference compared to pre-COVID time when students used to move back to their hometown etc.
- We talked a bit about Hawaiian Thanksgiving food
- Kanji guessing game was fun, and they had very good questions such as when these vegetables were introduced to Japan and how their kanji were decided like that.
- One student was sharing her knowledge about how Taiwanese use the same kanji for the same fruits and how a kanji was chosen for a certain fruit because of the meaning of kanji (蕃)
- We guessed some strange and rare family names and some super complicated kanji as well.
- We had a pretty fun time. They used everything they know to guess the kanji, such as a documentary film about fish that they watched the other day, the knowledge of Taiwanese usage of kanji, etc.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
- There are lots of kanji. Some are easy to guess, and others are just impossible to guess. We can do a lot about this.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Below are what we did with whiteboard
Fruits
Vegetables
Things in the water
Rare and strange family names
Complicated kanji
Taito たいと – a family name (not officially recorded in anywhere but there is a story around this kanji)
Biang – From Chinese kanji
Jin ジン – dust
