JAPN420: Maximizing study abroad experiences
Course Description:
Your study abroad experience is potentially a rich opportunity for you to enhance your language skills and deepen your understanding of other cultures, people and their practices. This course provides the resources to help you prepare to maximize your study abroad experiences. This course is taught in English.
Your study abroad experience is potentially a rich opportunity for you to enhance your language skills and deepen your understanding of other cultures, people and their practices. This course provides the resources to help you prepare to maximize your study abroad experiences. This course is taught in English.
Reflective narrative
Although many of the participants of this study abroad course could not study abroad shortly after this online course was taken due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were still advised to choose the school we would like to attend and create our LESCANT Instagram account for practice if we were to study abroad in the future.
I chose JF Oberlin University as my high school Japanese teacher Michelle Lupisan attended there as a study abroad student from CSUMB, and I wanted to follow in her footsteps. I was able to discuss classes and other opportunities near the school with other students who were interested in JF Oberlin University which was really great.
The largest project of this course was the LESCANT Instagram account and blog posts which can be found on this website under "More" and "Alyssa's Blog". It was in this course as well that this website was started. LESCANT is a digital blog expressed through photos and a culturally relevant analysis of such, improving MLOs 1 and 2 in the process on occasion. Please find examples of my LESCANT practice here. This was a challenge because I was not exposed to much, as COVID-19 precautions were in full effect and many places were not open to the public or were shut down entirely. There was no space to travel besides taking walks and trips to the store, hence many of my examples are from those encounters and past photos I found in my camera roll.
My favorite post is probably the most recent one about my experience finding the ingredients for and cooking the Okinawa dish 'Goya Champuru' which can be found here. I learned a lot about different cultures and lingual differences just from one dish!
This class focused on improving MLO 4: Technology and Research and I learned a lot about how to navigate different technologies such as Weebly and Instagram.
I chose JF Oberlin University as my high school Japanese teacher Michelle Lupisan attended there as a study abroad student from CSUMB, and I wanted to follow in her footsteps. I was able to discuss classes and other opportunities near the school with other students who were interested in JF Oberlin University which was really great.
The largest project of this course was the LESCANT Instagram account and blog posts which can be found on this website under "More" and "Alyssa's Blog". It was in this course as well that this website was started. LESCANT is a digital blog expressed through photos and a culturally relevant analysis of such, improving MLOs 1 and 2 in the process on occasion. Please find examples of my LESCANT practice here. This was a challenge because I was not exposed to much, as COVID-19 precautions were in full effect and many places were not open to the public or were shut down entirely. There was no space to travel besides taking walks and trips to the store, hence many of my examples are from those encounters and past photos I found in my camera roll.
My favorite post is probably the most recent one about my experience finding the ingredients for and cooking the Okinawa dish 'Goya Champuru' which can be found here. I learned a lot about different cultures and lingual differences just from one dish!
This class focused on improving MLO 4: Technology and Research and I learned a lot about how to navigate different technologies such as Weebly and Instagram.