Grade 10 - Understanding Culture and Society

This sub-organizer contains the following sections:
Prescribed Learning Outcomes
Suggested Instructional Strategies
Suggested Assessment Strategies
Recommended Learning Resources

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

It is expected that students will:

demonstrate knowledge of basic concepts and terms that characterize Japanese culture and society
discuss how cultural perceptions affect language and customs
identify cultural content in Japanese-language resources

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Understanding Culture and Society in other grades click on an icon below.

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

At this level, students internalize the meanings of words and phrases and begin to understand the way language works and how culture determines how language is used. By comparing their own cultures with Japanese culture, students develop a better understanding of the Japanese people and language and, ultimately, their own cultures.

Organize students in groups to role-play:
- a variety of Japanese social roles (e.g., a senpai-kouhai relationship) to become familiar with terms of address, non-verbal cues, polite expressions, greetings, introductions, and leave-takings
- a Japanese teacher-student situation that involves asking for and giving or denying permission
Provide students with authentic materials related to Japanese holidays and major festivals. Ask them to simulate various Japanese festivals in the classroom. Have students create displays showing the characteristic features of each festival, labelling important objects in hiragana , katakana , and some kanji .
After showing videos on Japanese and Canadian families, school structures, and work environments, invite students to compare life in Canada and Japan as represented in the videos. Support students in analysing the dialogues and information presented to determine male and female roles and social norms as portrayed. Students could represent some of these social behaviours in role plays in Japanese.
Ask students to work with partners to research the characteristics of traditional Japanese customs and social behaviour and share the information with the class. Encourage students to discuss how factors such as gender and age affect social behaviour and how these, along with traditions, are important when communicating cross-culturally with native speakers of Japanese. Have students collect this information on a class chart headed: Customs and Social BehavioursCommunicating with the Japanese.

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

As they participate in a variety of role plays, discussions, research, and representations, students have opportunities to demonstrate their awareness of Japanese culture and society, and their willingness to learn more about it and how it relates to other cultures, including their own.

When students role-play social roles and situations, notice the extent to which they use:
- appropriate terms of address
- non-verbal cues
- polite expressions
- greetings, introductions, and leave-takings
- conventions related to different social relationships (e.g., adult-child, teacher-student)
When students identify cultural content in Japanese resources, look for evidence that they recognize:
- images and contextual features
- unique features
- roles and societal positions
When students analyse and present information from videos about male and female roles and social norms in Japanese school structures or businesses, note to what extent they are able to:
- describe or represent key features related to roles and social norms
- identify some of the more subtle or complex features of men's and women's behaviour in the videos
- identify similarities between Japanese and Canadian social norms as portrayed in the videos they view
- show some insight and critical analysis in their presentations
- avoid overgeneralizing or stereotyping on the basis of one or two videos

RECOMMENDED LEARNING RESOURCES

Print Materials

"Body" Language
Chopsticks! An Owner's Manual
Eating in Japan
Everyday Japanese
Festivals of Japan
Haiku
In Japan
Japanese - An Appetizer
A Look Into Japan
NTC's Basic Japanese

Video

Annual Festivities and Ceremonies

Multimedia

101 Japanese Idioms
Japanese Language and People
Kimono
Moshi Moshi

CD-ROM

Exotic Japan

Revised: January 26, 1999

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