Online Interactive Classes held by TUFS – SISU

July 3, 2020

Over the course of two days (Thursday, May 28 and Thursday, June 4, 2020), an online interactive class was held between TUFS and Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). The class was a collaboration between TUFS’s Liberal Arts subject ‘Aspects of Teaching Japanese to Speakers of Other Languages 1’ held by TANIGUCHI Ryuko (Institute of Japan Studies/Associate Professor) and SISU’s ‘Japanese Speech and Presentation’ held by TAKADA Mayu (School of Japanese Studies/Japanese Instructor and SISU GJO Coordinator). Using the video conferencing service Zoom, 71 students from TUFS and 36 students from SISU participated, with a total of more than 100 students joining the class.

On day 1, group discussions on topics such as meaningful personal belongings, values and Doraemon’s secrete gadgets were held using 15 different breakout rooms. On day 2, each group presented the content of their discussions.

The following is some of the feedback from TUFS students: “The students from SISU spoke very high-level Japanese, and the expressions they used were also impressive. I hope I can speak my Major language as well as they can speak Japanese some day.”, “It was interesting to notice similarities and differences between our values.”, “In a group that had people with multiple different opinions, it was a good experience to be able to cooperate and come up with one conclusion in the end.”
SISU students also had this to say: “Being able to speak in Japanese gave me confidence.”, “Even though my Japanese isn’t perfect, I was happy the students from TUFS listened to what I was trying to say.”, “It was interesting to hear opinions that were different to mine.”
This online interactive class was held due to both schools having had to adjust to online teaching. We hope to continue having online exchanges in the future.