Language Resident/Assistant Name:  

Kozue Matsumoto  

Day and Date:  

Monday February 15 & 18, 2021   

Language and Level (intermediate or advanced class):  

Intermediate  & Advanced

Class theme/topics discussed:  

  • Yokai  

Goal of the class:  

  • Understand Yokai 
  • Introduce a yokai 
  • Think about yokai of our time

How did you structure the class?  

  1. Study Break Announcement (10 min) 
    1. Have you done origami before? What did you make? What occasion? 
  1. Good news?  (10 min) 
    1. Snow in Houston 
    2. Lunar New Year 
    3. Success (extra stuff) in Chinese  
  1. What is yokai? (5 min) 
  1. What kind of Yokai have you found? (15 min) 
  1. アマビエ Amabie (https://youtu.be/seDUC9Dqep8 or https://youtu.be/WC6vZrg2yZo) (15 min) 
    1. Watch and understand followings  
      1. What Amabie looks like 
      2. What Amabie said to people 
    2. How this is popular in Japan now
    3. Draw Amabie 
  1. (Intermidiate) Let’s think about today’s Yokai
  2. (Advanced) Japanese people/society’s attitude towards yokai, other spiritual existence, and not-so-scientific things (5 min) 

What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.) 

Class agreement, breakup rooms 

Zoom, share screen, youtube, google images, pen and paper 

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

Intermidiate:

  • Students researched some ideas of what Yokai is. We also introduced some yokai that they found. They also shared some stories around the yokai.  
  • We watched the video of Amabie story. Amabie is a yokai that became super popular in Japan last year. Amabie is a yokai who lives in the ocean. It is said that if you draw Amabie and show it to a sick person, they will get well. So the coronavirus reminded people of Amabie, and it became a huge cultural trend in japan, like a collective wish towards the people suffering from COVID. 
  • Since we watched the story and know that Amabie looks like (have a bird-like beak, rhombus shaped eyes, long red hear, rainbow color scales, and 3 fish tales on which they can stand), we draw Amabie. That was fun. 
  • We also looked at original amabie. A student found a page that shows various amabie interpretations by comtemporary artists in the world (https://www.ideo.com/blog/16-artist-interpretations-of-amabie-a-mythical-japanese-creature-said-to-ward-off-disease ). 
  • We thought about what the yokai could be in today’s contemporary world. It was fun, but we only had a few minutes to think about.  

Advanced:

  • We discussed what yokai is. We were able to discuss more conceptual ideas than 11.1 class. They told me that they didn’t have a concept of yokai until I said it in the previous class, but after some research, they realized they have seen yokai here and there in their lives. They didn’t recognize them as yokai at that time.  
  • We also talked about yokai as not mosters, not spirits, but some other category. Probably based on Japanese people’s imagination towards little things in their lives.  
  • Watching Amabie story and drawing it was fun. We saw other amabie drawings by artists in the world. We also discussed how Amabie became a trend in Japan last year under COVID, and how these non-scientific things are still around people’s life 
  • We talked about other non-scientific things around our Japanese life. Could these things be just stupid ideas or do they help people’s mind/psychology in a certain way? How and Why? 

How could this class be improved/ modified? 

  • Yokai is such a unique concept, and one hour might not be enough to fully understand what they are, but I hope they got a bit of sense about it.  
  • Amabie was a good example of relationship between human and yokai.  
  • While they were drawing (5 min or so). There was a silent, but I thought it’s good to have some activities like drawing once in a while, especially when it’s related to the topic.  

Amabie Videos

Amabie Drawings by Students