MLO 5: Cultural Internalization and Language Immersion5.1 Students demonstrate that they have actively immersed themselves in authentic Japanese cultural and linguistic environments and have internalized the language and cultural experience, from which they have developed a personal understanding and new perspectives of the community.
NOTE: Students develop intercultural communication skills and strategies, and learn to adapt and respond in effective ways. This MLO may be fulfilled by a study abroad or equivalent experience. On the right is a list of courses I took in Japan which fulfill this MLO. |
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MLO 5.1
As most other students will say, I will also begin with saying how undeniably beneficial my study abroad experience was to my language learning. Not only was I able to learn Japanese in the classroom, I actually got to practice it in the real world on a daily basis. I went to Okayama University, which offered seven different levels for Japanese classes and culture courses taught in English and Japanese. There were also courses you could take such as grammar, kanji, and reading where you could get extra practice alongside your daily language course. It was the perfect setting for me to internalize what I had been learning all these years.
One of the best ways I was able to immerse myself in an authentic Japanese cultural environment was my weekly Chado: Mind and Practice class. This class was actually held in my dormitory, as there was a real chashitsu (Japanese tea room) on the first floor. Each week, we learned a new step of the process of a Tea Ceremony. We also got real fukusa (a silk cloth to clean the tea equipment), along with a few other utensils used during the process of eating the wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets eaten while drinking the green tea). After watching our professor act out the step we were going to learn that day, we read supplementary handouts that showed us step-by-step what to do in case we forgot during the coming week. These handouts can be found on the bottom right of this page (see Evidence 2).
I always used to believe that Japan was a 99% homogeneous society until I took a culture course in Japan called Transnational Mobility and Multiculturalism in Japan. We delved into several topics in this course, the most beneficial being a seminar on how Japan is not a homogeneous society. Discussing such topics as Nikkei (second-generation Japanese), international workers in Japan, and ha-fu (half Japanese, half other ethnicity), I developed a new perspective of the Japanese community. This directly correlates to MLO 5.1, and if you look specifically at page 8 (see Evidence 1), there are many points that describe how and why Japan is not as homogeneous as it once was.
One of the best ways I was able to immerse myself in an authentic Japanese cultural environment was my weekly Chado: Mind and Practice class. This class was actually held in my dormitory, as there was a real chashitsu (Japanese tea room) on the first floor. Each week, we learned a new step of the process of a Tea Ceremony. We also got real fukusa (a silk cloth to clean the tea equipment), along with a few other utensils used during the process of eating the wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets eaten while drinking the green tea). After watching our professor act out the step we were going to learn that day, we read supplementary handouts that showed us step-by-step what to do in case we forgot during the coming week. These handouts can be found on the bottom right of this page (see Evidence 2).
I always used to believe that Japan was a 99% homogeneous society until I took a culture course in Japan called Transnational Mobility and Multiculturalism in Japan. We delved into several topics in this course, the most beneficial being a seminar on how Japan is not a homogeneous society. Discussing such topics as Nikkei (second-generation Japanese), international workers in Japan, and ha-fu (half Japanese, half other ethnicity), I developed a new perspective of the Japanese community. This directly correlates to MLO 5.1, and if you look specifically at page 8 (see Evidence 1), there are many points that describe how and why Japan is not as homogeneous as it once was.
Evidence 1:
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Evidence 2:
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