Project Report By: Yoshiko Samuel, Japanese, Wesleyan
BACKGROUND:
With invaluable help from Steven Smolnik, Technological Assistant for the Mellon Project, I have completed the project for which I received Mellon support in 1996.
As I proposed in 1996, I took slides of various situations in Japan, had them pressed onto CDs, and selected fifteen of them to create a program entitled "Situational Conversation in Japanese." The program is divided into three categories, namely, "Coffee Shop," "Subways," and "Homestay Family." Each category comprises five problems for which students are instructed to perform specific conversational tasks, that are designed to improve their skills in:
The program, in other words, is created to enable students to handle both uncomplicated and complicated situations in everyday life. The photo images are provided to give authenticity to the situations, guide students in their conversations and to stimulate their interest in Japanese language and culture. Since I intend to use the program for weekly assignments for my students in Japn 206 Intermediate Japanese, I have linked it to my syllabus for that course on our department webpage. The instruction given for each task, however, is flexible enough to benefit students of higher levels, as well. The program is also accessible to any interested parties as either a material for assignments or for classroom instructions.
By creating this program, I have learned to use both Adobe Photoshop and Netscape webpage, and I intend to continue to use the newly acquired technological knowledge and skills in the future. I am grateful to the Mellon Foundation for its support.