Peer Review

Japanese Mosaic

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Reviewed:: Mar 11, 2011 by World Languages

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Japanese Mosaic is a collection of content-based curricula materials in Japanese created by the Center for Applied Second Language Studies at the University of Oregon. It provides a variety of thematic units such as a History of the Edo period, Baseball, Fashion, Recycling, Manga and Anime, Food and Lifestyle, and Haiku. Each unit has 6-10 lessons according to the topic and provides a brief introduction, the objectives for learning the topic in English as well as for learning Japanese using the same topic, and suggested activities for a summative assessment. Each lesson provides a lesson plan in both HTML and Word formats, and includes student activity handouts, visual aids for teachers and more. It is one component of the project’s website, Mosaic : Linking Language and content (http://casls.uoregon.edu/mosaic/index.php )
Type of Material:: Learning objects repository
Recommended Uses:: Recommended for instructors in preparing for classes; Excellent for tying into both social studies and second language curriculum.
Technical Requirements:: Quick time player;Works on IE 7 and Firefox 3.6.13
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The student will be able to express a deeper understanding of some cultural aspects of Japan, use Japanese to talk about them, develop reading and listening skills, and increase vocabulary related to the topics.Each lesson plan includes specific learning goals for both Social Studies education standards and Second Language standards.
Target Student Population:: Beginning , Intermediate, advanced Japanese classes
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Depending on the unit, but at least one or two semesters of Beginning Japanese. Must be able to read Hiragana, Katakana and basic Kanji as well as understand basic grammar.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: Japanese Mosaic is a great resource for teachers looking for a ready to go lesson plan. The objectives of each lesson are very clear, and visual aids, scripts, handouts and activities for assesment as well as suggested resources related to each topic are extensive. The idea of “linking language and content” is reflected in various students’ activities which clearly follow ACTFL standards.Each module is very thorough and covers the topic completely. Handouts cover all aspects of the work and guide students (and instructors) through the learning objectives.
Concerns:: The “Tokaido” unit has extensive vocabulary, which might overwhelm students while performing even a simple task such as identifying and extracting details. Learners might benefit from some extra background information in English as pre-class activities. Some of the suggested resources are somewhat outdated as this project was completed over the 2003-2005 academic years. The lesson order in each unit needs to be followed.The module is primarily text-based and not very interactive.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: Japanese Mosaic provides some excellent example of lesson plans which are aligned with ACTFL standards. Clear unit objectives, teaching instructions and summative assessment ideas will help teachers avoid spending time to develop lesson plans from scratch. Images, video, handouts in the lesson will engage learners’ multiple senses. Students’ activities consist of pair and group work which are intended to generate student collaboration.
Concerns:: Handouts in some of the lessons are heavily text oriented. A user will benefit if every lesson plan has balanced amount of images, video and text.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: This site has a clean design. It is very easy to use and simple, yet functional. A link is provided to easily access required plug-ins (Quick time player) for downloading.
Concerns:: The material is fairly plain and there is little interactivity. Also, on the webpages, Japanese characters do not display properly (possibly because the HTML version has been copied and pasted from a Word document).

Other Issues and Comments:: In general, the site is well-organized but lacks interactivity. It is an excellent resource to assist instructors in preparing their own lesson plans. Needs some tweaking to make Japanese characters display properly without requiring the user to change character encoding manually.
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