Students at a Japanese as a heritage language (JHL) school will make a proposal for their school’s Japanese summer festival, in which they persuade their teachers to allow them to have an untraditional event Dunk Tank in their summer festival.
This project will be conducted in a high school course of a Japanese heritage language school by the JHL students with Intermediate mid to Intermediate high proficiency. Growing up in a bilingual environment, JHL students develop linguistic competence in both English and Japanese. However due to a varied degree of exposure to and the use of Japanese (heritage language) at home, their Japanese language proficiency displays a wide-range while their English (dominant language) is fully developed over time. Similarly, JHL students develop Japanese cultural knowledge with a varied degree. In terms of intercultural competency, they are in an environment which potentially enables them to develop it based on their already acquired cultural knowledge at home if they receive an appropriate training at school.
This PBLL unit was created based on the following problem that actually occurred at a JHL school:
The Student Association consisting of high school level learners at a Japanese heritage language school, requested the school to have a Dunk Tank booth at their annual Japanese summer festival. They would like to do something different from regular and traditional booths that are common in Japanese summer festivals. Teachers opposed this idea for the reason that it is not a part of a Japanese traditional summer festival and they are concerned that younger children might think that the Dunk Tank is a part of a traditional Japanese festival. However, they did not want to reject the student's’ request, because the students, who usually learned passively, worked seriously for the first time to have their proposal passed.
This was not a right-wrong issue. Both sides had legitimate reasons, which however created a dilemma. This situation gives a genuine learning opportunity to acquire content knowledge, critical thinking skills and linguistic and cultural knowledge and competencies. The project aims at that students will:
· * construct (or reconstruct) their key knowledge and understanding of the Japanese summer festival by collecting various information from authentic videos and written texts, and from interviews with Japanese native speakers at their age and their teachers;
· * develop critical thinking skills through their inquiry by analyzing collected data and making and proving their hypotheses toward what a Japanese summer festival is;
· *develop linguistic and socio-linguistic knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and discourse; and communicative competence while they learn the content and interact with native speakers in their interview;
· * develop intercultural knowledge from the collected information and intercultural competence to flexibly view their culture;
· *develop skills to persuade others with evidence;
· * utilize technology effectively as needed;
· *improve collaboration skills; and
· * learn how to reflect on their learning.
The product of this project is a proposal in which they persuade their teachers to allow to have the Dunk Tank as an event in their school’s Japanese summer festival. They will present their proposal using technological tools they choose based on their needs.
Project Overview
Scaffolding for Learning
Implementation information not specified.
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Key Knowledge and Understanding
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Success Skills
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Key Tasks and Activities
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Learner reflection
Weekly log +
· Progress pass for learning · Exit slip for collaboration |
Assessment (formative & summative)
FA: Formative assessment SA: summative assessment
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Students will learn about what summer festivals are for Japanese people. |
Students will be able to: a. analyze responses of the Cultura questionnaires for any emerging cultural patterns;
b. hypothesize to explain Japanese native speakers’ and teachers perspectives on Japanese summer festivals;
c. ask questions to Japanese native speakers and teachers and teachers |
Students will: a. brainstorm about the Japanese festival and fill out concept web (1st one), and discuss what they know and what they want to know (KWL chart) about the Japanese summer festival;
b. categorize the responses by Japanese native speakers and their teachers in the Cultura questionnaires on “summer festivals” and identify and record any cultural patterns emerged;
c. compare and record the similarities and differences of the patterns; d. discuss to form their hypothesis on the differences and list questions and comments they have had during the discussion;
f. response questions from their Japanese peers on Forum;
g. write a set of questions for the interview with their Japanese peers, using culuturally appropriate vocabulary and grammar in Japanese;
h. write a set of questions for the interview with their Japanese teachers, using culturally appropriate vocabulary and grammar in Japanese; |
d.“Progress Pass-1-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
g.“Progress Pass-2-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
h.“Progress Pass-3-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
Reflection on collaboration “Exit Slip on collaborarion” or discussion |
d.discussion assessment (FA)
Progress pass-Interculturarity |
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Students will learn about types and purposes of summer festivals in Japan, which include both so called “traditional” and not traditional festivals. |
Students will be able to: a. describe different types and purposes of Japanese summer festivals;
b. hypothesize to explain perspectives on different types and purposes of Japanese summer festivals;
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Students will: a. (in groups) view different YouTube videos of Japanese summer festivals and list characteristics of the festivals on a poster paper;
b. visit other groups’ posters (“Galley Walk”) and compare and contrast similarities and differences of the festivals using a ven diagram;
c. (in group) view different YouTube videos of the booths that can be found in Japanese summer festivals, and list their characteristics on a poster paper;
d. visit other groups’ posters (“Galley Walk”) and compare and contrast similarities and differences of the festivals using a ven diagram;
e. (in group) view different YouTube videos of the dances in Japanese summer festivals, and list their characteristics on a poster paper;
f. visit other groups’ posters (“Galley Walk”) and compare and contrast similarities and differences of the festivals using a ven diagram;
g. read web site information on fireworks shows that take place in six regions in Japan and get information on when they take place;
h. summarize what they have found, complete a concept web (2nd one) about the Japanese summer festival, and compare it with the first one;
i. read articles (differentiated by language proficiency) uploaded to Internet and obtain main ideas;
j. share the information they have obtained with other groups (info-gap) and analyze characteristics of traditional and non-traditional festivals;
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b.“Progress Pass-1-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
f.“Progress Pass-3-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
h. “Progress Pass-4-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
Reflection on collaboration “Exit Slip on collaboration” or discussion |
b. discussion assessment (FA)
d. discussion assessment (FA)
f. discussion assessment (FA)
h. compare and contrast concept maps (#1  in handouts). <Feed back orally>
j. discussion assessment (FA)
i. checking for understanding: reading comprehension(FA) <In handouts>
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Students will learn about Japanese summer festivals are broadly defined in Japan, and they are defined differently based on their purposes. |
Students will be able to: a. make appropriate generalizations on Japanese summer festivals in present time;
b. support their assumptions with the evidence they have collected.
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Students will: a. make revisions, if necessary, on the concept web (2nd one);
b. (in groups) synthesize the collected information, and summarize on a poster sheet their findings on Japanese summer festivals (what kinds, where and why they celebrate);
c. visit other groups’ poster (“Galley Walk”) and compare and contrast similarities and differences of the summer festivals;
d. make generalization, with evidence, about what Japanese summer festivals are. |
d. “Progress Pass-1-“ (Paper or TitanPad) |
d. discussion assessment (FA) |
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Students will learn about the implication of their findings for their planning of the summer festival. |
Students will be able to: apply their findings to their school’s summer festival.
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Students will: a. discuss about similarities and differences between the festivals in Japan and their proposed events/games/ booths;
b. discuss how they can utilize their findings to support their proposal. |
b.“Progress Pass-5-“ (Paper or TitanPad) |
b. discussion assessment (FA)
Progress pass-Interculturarity |
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Students will learn the effective ways to persuade others |
Students will be able to: a. identify effective persuasive strategies;
b. discuss effective strategies to successfully persuade teachers and Board members to accept their proposal |
Students will: a.view videos (in English) about effective persuasion, and identify effective ways to persudade others;
Sample 1 How to prepare a persuasive speech
Sample 2 The art of persuasion http://ed.ted.com/on/XPtUNjOf#discussion
b. discuss how they apply their findings to their context |
a.“Progress Pass-1-“ (Paper or TitanPad)
Reflection on collaboration “Exit Slip on collaborarion” or discussion |
b. discussion assessment (FA) |
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Students will learn about technological tools for the effective way to present their proposal. |
Students will be able to identify the most appropriate technological tools for their presentation;
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Students will learn some technological tools (e.g. PPT, Thinglink, Padlet) and choose the most appropriate one for their presentation. |
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Students will learn how to make an effective presentation |
Students will be able to: a. identify the contents to be included for their presentation;
b. explain the strategies to make their presentation effective. |
Students will: a. select the content to be included in their presentation and develop their presentation using the technological tool of their choice;
b. rehearse, comment, and revise their presentation.
c. evaluate their presentation |
Project self-reflection (SA) BIE’s form
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*Presentation assessment (SA)（Rubrics will be jointly created by students and their teacher ）by an instructor, audience, students
*Assessment on collaboration (Rubric) (SA)
Interculturarity assessment (Rubric) (SA) |
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PROBLEM, QUESTION, CHALLENGE |
PURPOSE |
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“How can we create a successful campaign to convince the administration to allow the inclusion of a Dunk Tank booth in our school’s Japanese summer festival ?”
The Student Association at a Japanese heritage language school would like to have a Dunk Tank booth for their annual Japanese summer festival. They would like to have a different booth than “traditional” ones they have every year. Teachers are reluctant to approve the idea because they are concerned that younger children might think it is one of traditional Japanese summer festivals. |
Students will persuade teachers, Parent Association and school board to get an approval to have a Dunk Tank booth in their summer festival.
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PRODUCT |
AUDIENCE |
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Presentation to the teachers, members of the Parent Association and board members at the school, who are reluctant to include Dunk Tank in the events for the Japanese summer festival. Learners are expected to provide an evidence-based support for their persuasion. |
Teachers, members of Parent Association and board members at the school |
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Why do learners care? |
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Students would like to have a Dunk Tank booth at a Japanese summer festival. To do so, they need to convince teachers by rationalizing its inclusion in a Japanese cultural activity based on their understanding of Japanese summer festivals. Their motivation to learn is very strong because they initiated this idea and they would like to make it happen. |
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Task 1: Collecting information and creating hypotheses by Cultura (please see Handouts-Part 1)
Link to Handouts-Part 1:Handouts_Part 1
1.1. Students will:
a. answer the Cultura questionnaires on “summer festivals” and compare their responses with those from their partners in Japan (Affinity diagram will be used);
b. share their findings and discuss what cultural patterns may emerge;
c. go onto the discussion forums, posting comments, making hypotheses, asking questions to their peers in Japan, which are based on their individual observations and the class discussions;
d. discuss about a selection of comments from their peers in Japan;
e. conduct interviews to ask questions and verify their hypothesis.
1.2. Students will:
a. collect and categorize responses of the Cultura questionnaires on “summer festivals” from their teachers (Affinity diagram will be used);
b. share their findings and discuss what cultural patterns may emerge from teachers’ responses;
c. conduct interview to ask questions and verify their hypothesis.
Task 2: Collecting information and creating hypotheses from videos and written texts (please see Handouts–Part2)
Link to Handouts-Part 2 Handouts-Part 2
Students will:
a. view YouTube videos, read blog entries on summer festival (school blogs), summer festival information posted by cities or prefectures, and articles on summer festival;
Activity 1: Viewing videos (each group chooses one video and fill in a handout with the information they collect; they share the information by Carousel Walk)
Activity 2: Reading blog entries and other written information. They will learn how to skim to sort out relevant information from not relevant information.
Activity 3: Categorization of information
They will sort out summer festivals by types and purposes, and record them in a chart.
b. share and discuss their findings with their peers
c. write a brief note of their findings
Note: Focus will be the examples of the festivals and their purposes that can be utilized in their proposal.
Task 3: Making proposal and preparation for presentation (please see Handouts-Part 3)
Link to handouts-Part 3 Handouts-Part 3
Students will:
a. discuss how they can utilize the synthesized information to support their proposal
b. learn about effective persuasion skills from videos (in English)
c. discuss how to present their proposal and learn effective presentation skills using appropriate technology tools;
d. rehearse their presentation and critique it for improvement.
Students will receive handouts (graphic organizers) to support their learning of the following cognitive skills, which are accompanied with samples of sentences to express the ideas:
*Compare and contrast
*Conduct interview
*Critique their presentation
* Formulate and verify hypotheses
*Generalize information
* Present ideas
* Persuade others
* Synthesize information
Scaffolding activities for reading written texts are provided in three phases (i.e. pre-reading, reading, and post-reading) to assist student understanding the texts (please see the “Handouts-Part 2”).
Through the project, students will keep a group folder in Google Docs where they keep a weekly log to record a progress of the project (Date, job to be done, job completed or incomplete, additional jobs to be done, who is in charge). In an individual folder, students will keep reflective journal to record reflection, questions, frustration, and comments, for example. The teacher regularly reads these logs and assist students in need.
1. Formative and Summative Assessment (please see the links below)
For formative assessment, a variety of assessment strategies will be used to check for understanding the project contents and process:
* Progress passes to assess interculturarity, if they learn from collaboration, how students handle a task, how they apply previous learning to a similar context, what resources they use, etc.
* Discussion assessment to assess student’s language use when they engage in discussion.·
* Collaboration exit tickets to assess student’s reflection on collaboration.
* Comprehension questions to assess student’s understanding of written texts.
* Graphic organizers to assess their understanding of cognitive skills.
* Various tasks in handouts to assess task completion and to check for their understanding the assigned tasks.
For summative assessment, the final product that is students’ presentation to persuade teachers to allow them to include a Dunk Tank booth in their summer festival will be assessed. To assess the presentation, three different rubrics will be used by teachers, other audience (parents and school board members), and students respectively. Student rubric will be jointly created by students and their teacher. In addition, Project Self-Reflection rubric and Assessment on Collaboration, and Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE Rubric will be used to assess students’ reflection on their project, their collaboration, and interculturarity respectively.
Formative assessment of discussion
Presentation assessments by students, teachers, and parents
Learner Reflection (please see the links below)
Students will keep a reflective journal of their learning through the project. They describe their experiences in the affective domain such as a-ha moment, reaction to others, and frustration, for example, as well as the cognitive domain such as what they have learned according to their K-W-L chart, what they learned from others, and how their knowledge has been changed.
Progress pass-interculturarity
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