Discussion Activities from Beginner Level with Themes Based on Familiar Questions about Japan

Abstract

During lessons of listening comprehension and oral expression intended for Japanese language beginners, we carried out the following activities: 1) Learners wrote their familiar questions about Japan in their notebooks, 2) shared them in a group, and 3) speculated on the possible reasons. Although these classes tend to deal with functional conversation, we thought that it was also necessary to enhance self-expression activities. Therefore, these activities were carried out throughout the semester. In this paper, we describe the significance of these activities using a survey analysis and notebook review, and consider improvements for future classes.