Language Resident Name: Miki Saigo

Day and Date: May 4, 2020

Language and Level: Intermediate Japanese

Class theme/topics discussed:

  • Causative and causative-passive verbs

Goal of the class:

  • Review the grammar rules of causative and causative-passive verbs
  • Use causative-passive verbs in conversation

How did you structure the class?

  • Warm-up: Greetings
    – I ask students to participate in the course evaluation (distributed via email) after class.
  • Activity I: Quarantine Bingo
    Using the bingo sheet made by the advanced class last week, we play a bingo game in teams (two students per team); if the statement in a cell applies to either of the team member, they the cell. At the end, the team with most bingos wins.
    (To do this in the online environment, I made copies of the bingo sheet on a document on Google Doc and had students mark in the synced document.)
  • Activity II: Causative
    First, we review the usage and conjugation rules of causative verbs (-せる／させる; make someone do-). Then, to drill the conjugation, I show some pictures and have students describe them with causative verbs (e.g. “I made my child study,” “I made him eat vegetables,” “I made him go to school”). I write down the sentences on the slides as students answer. Next, we play a game that uses causative verbs; it is a rock-scissors-paper game, except students have to follow the commands, “You win/lose” or “Make the opponent win/lose”.
  • Activity III: Causative-passive
    I introduce causative-passive verbs (させられる; be made to do-) by rewriting some of the sentences from the previous activity. We review when and how to use causative-passive verbs. Then, I ask students to describe the pictures from the previous activity with causative-passive verbs (e.g. “I was made to study,” “I was made to eat vegetables,” “I was made to go to school”).
    Next, we discuss the following questions, using causative-passive verbs:
    1. Were you forced to do anything as a child? (e.g. music lessons, sports, fashion etc.) As an example, I show a picture of myself wearing a kendo uniform as a child and talk about my memories back then (e.g. “I was made to learn kendo,” “I was made to wear the uncomfortable uniform”).
    2. Have you ever been forced to buy anything by your family, friends or salesclerks?
  • Closing: briefly explain what we will be doing in the next class (Final class!)

What technology, media or props did you use?

What worked well in this class? What did not work?

  • I chose this grammar rule as the topic because it is one of the hardest in the intermediate/advanced grammar. I designed this class by setting the target grammar first, and then the activities. This way, I was able to structure the class logically and with a clear goal. (I know this was the ideal way to design a class but I often failed to follow this process this semester.)
  • Because my original lesson plan turned out too short in the advanced class, I added more drilling of the conjugations in Activity II and III. This became a good guided practice, especially to intermediate students; they find the task helpful to practice the complicated conjugations.
  • They liked seeing my childhood pictures. It is nice to use personalized materials sometimes in order to catch students’ attention.

How could this class be improved/ modified?

  • It would be better with a couple more open-ended tasks. I would add some discussion questions that make students use causative verbs after Activity II.

Materials: