Last AQUA Lab Observation 1/19/2017

-Today is the last and final observation for AQUA Lab. Unfortunately there are absolutely no GIGA students in class at the moment. Lecture itself is completely in Japanese as usual. Students seem quite tired after a long 14 weeks of classes and are probably right in the middle of finals. All those exams, papers and presentations definitely seem to take their toll.

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-Because there are no GIGA students in class at the moment, I particularly want to start considering first of all what happens to the translation role after I finish my GP2 and thereafter graduate? I believe short term, there will need to be incentives for bilingual students to translate for AQUA lab. I will be blunt and honest, my incentive was to complete my GP2, but if students are not doing this for GP2 AQUA Lab and perhaps school management will need to start considering other incentives such as offering of SA positions (which means that students can earn some part time income of around 30,000 yen per semester). I believe that to expand potential candidates it may be a good idea to have a open ended age/year restriction (so for example even a 2nd year can do the SA). Alternatively, if I had more time I was considering creating a sort of "circle" or "club" that offers translation for RG across SFC, or maybe like a group for SA to gather and discuss with each others way to raise efficiency in translating and offering social support in RG. However, there may be a few issues for this to work such as the fact there are not yet enough RG that exist in SFC to make such a circle viable or maybe even useful? But long term, somewhere down the line it may be good for SFC if a pioneer created such a club.

Somewhere down the line, someone will need to initiate a legacy. And I hope that my GP2 project and this site serves to be a kick starter and potential future reference for the future generations to one day form a club and take this whole translation project and improve it. Perhaps a very conceited way of looking at it, but my wish is for this site to be the start of a legacy at SFC. A legacy that will continue to exist long after I have graduated, and a legacy that future generations can perhaps take off. It it even slightly serves to be of some use to future generations, I feel that keeping this domain active will be worth it. During my journey of many years at SFC, my one regret is that I did not leave behind any legacy. I did not form a circle or club for students from Hawaii, or even a event focused circle for GIGA students in general. I plan to create a translation core in my final upcoming semester at SFC. My conclusion from my ethnography: Keio SFC is still far from being a super global university. I believe the reasons are quite apparent and obvious from these notes. I would like to do my utmost to change this in my final semester at SFC in Freedman Lab.

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Interview + Analysis with John Pivernetz 1/12/2017

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-Originally I had prepared and planed to conduct an interview on Tuesday, January 10. The Pivernetz family arrived as a special guest to our Project English C class on Tuesday 3rd Period. In this class, we were crafting a bilingual children's story book and wanted our special guests including their 10 year old son to give their honest review and opinion of our work. Schedule was tight, and I was unfortunately able to conduct a direct and physical interview due to a lack of time. I therefore got permission from Professor Freedman and decided to conduct an email interview instead:

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-I would like to interview you about your son because as a parent of a third culture child, I think you must have some opinion of the relevance and importance of having a global and cross cultural perspective.

 

 

1) Why third culture? Why do you believe that it is important for your son to be a third culture kid?
2) What are some of the practical advantages you believe your son will carry throughout his later life from his early development in cross-culture experience?
3) As a parent, how do you currently ensure that your son is third culture?
4) From a linguistics point of view, what do you consider to be the most essential steps in bilingual development?-In particular, what do you think is the most important step in teaching english in Japan? How do we produce a true bilingual?
5) I am sure that you send your son to school but which school did you choose to send him to, and why?

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Thanks,
Jon Pivernetz
1.  I believe third culture children will have many advantages, foremost of which is being able to experience empathy with people different from himself.  Since he's able to experience two distinct cultures first hand, he's able to understand the subtle differences between these two cultures.  I foresee this giving him tremendous advantages later in life when he is put in situations where he must empathize, or try to consider how others are experiences a situation.  

 

2.  I think he will have the obvious advantage of knowing two languages deeply.  I also think he will have a critical insight as he matures, since he's having to master the subtle implications and meanings that his two languages hold.  

 

3.  Raising a child with two languages, and two cultures, is very demanding.  We are investing time and money into his Saturday schooling, and worry that he may push against his studies as he grows older.  As parents, we often feel like its doing "double" of what other kids are asked to do (double school time, double homework, etc.).  It also is important to foster friendships that support both cultures, and languages.  He also attends tutoring in math, in Japanese, so he can experience a more "Japanese" approach to calculating math work.

 

4.  I think him being able to stay for extended periods of time in Japan, and attend public school there even briefly, has helped.  Because of this, he is immersed in the language, and he learns the subtleties of inferred meanings, casual vs. respectful words, etc.  When he's at his Saturday school in America, all curriculum is taught strictly in Japanese as well.  He's in many situations that require him to use both his languages.

     We also tend to talk about the meaning of words often, at the dinner table, or while we're reading books together.  I can do this with him in English, and his mother does this with Japanese.  We discuss synonyms, antonyms, and why some words are used in certain contexts.  

 

5.     He goes to Weaver Elementary School in Los Alamitos, Ca.  This particular public school had a very good reputation for being academically challenging.  It also happened to be nearby our home, and on a year round schedule that helped facilitate longer duration trips abroad, to Japan in off-peak travel times.  He attends Asahi-Gakkuen Saturday school, to get Japanese language and curriculum.  This school is subsidized by the Japanese Government, and follows public school curriculum in Japan.  While visiting in Japan, he attends the elementary school nearby my in-laws home in Naruse, Machida city, Tokyo.  Machida city seems to have a lenient policy when it comes to enrolling students from abroad, and have been very receptive to his visits.  We also like the fact that he is able to attend a neighborhood school, and has consequently made many friends in the small neighborhood where my in-laws reside.

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-My Analysis: The basic idea and concept of this interview was to try to split the interview into 2 central themes/concepts: 1) What are the advantages to be third culture? and 2) How does a family try to ensure third culture education. From the interview, I could tell that the Privenetz family invests a lot of time and money and effort into ensuring that their son has the best third culture education possible. The basic method to do this is basically putting their son in situations where he has no choice but to constantly be exposed into not only hearing Japanese, but actively utilizing it himself. For example, he needs to go to Japanese school every Saturday, needs to perform in Japanese for mathematics in cram school, and also he constantly speaks Japanese with his mother. Because he lives in the U.S and he speaks English with Jon, the primary language will always be English. However, constantly putting him into situations where he absolutely must utilize Japanese is maybe as Jon says "hard work", but it is an absolutely essential effort in trying to maintain Japanese language competency in the U.S. What particularly caught my attention was how he often attends a neighborhood school in Machida. I believe this has particular value; not just for the language value of being exposed to Japanese, but more so for the incentives of adjusting to Japanese culture and social values that can be raised through forming new friendships as an exchange student in Japan. And this principle I think can really relate to AQUA Lab as well, where there is an influx of both GIGA and native Japanese students. In raising cultural awareness and assimilation I believe that there are 2 aspects.  There is the language aspect and the technical aspect of how to overcome the language barrier. In the case of AQUA Lab, that came in the form of live translation. But the other aspect that often times is not addressed particularly in SFC is perhaps the aspect of social integration. I think forming new relationships and friendships is one of the best ways to help GIGA students integrate into not only classrooms but RG that supports English. There is a lot about language proficiency and social customs that can't necessarily be covered from a textbook. And that is also perhaps why I believe that more than just translating occasionally for GIGA students, I think I was of much more use by simply being a friend to a lot of the GIGA students.

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Observation of AQUA Lab 12/22/2016

 

-Today I only spot one GIGA student, Ival who I am currently sitting next to.

 

-Ival is a member of Kumo lab and he was my classmate last semester in one of our GIGA/Project English C classes. He is from Indonesia.

 

-The Lab kicked off with a presentation on A-City, which is a RG within AQUA. 

 

-The A-City is also apparently known as Tokuda Lab.

 

-Apparently A-City was originally a part of Life-Cloud RG but they split off and created A-City.

 

-I know none of this seems to be directly relevant to GIGA students, but whenever there is a presentation on RG (introduction of specific Research Groups) I try to pay attention so that if there are new GIGA students looking for a new RG I would have some starting ground to introduce them. 

 

-I can’t help but be absorbed into their presentation because it is just so amazing and interesting. A-City is researching “Stress Management”, but stress management through IT. They are currently researching wrist bands which apparently can detect your stress levels. 

 

-I can’t suspect that even Ival, who I know has very decent Japanese for a GIGA student, is somewhat struggling to comprehend all of what they are saying. The lecture/presentation is again completely in Japanese, and only the titles are English.

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-I know its common for people to play around with their phones and laptops during lectures and presentations, but GIGA or not, all of these students are paying no attention to the presentation at hand. And although the topic itself of A-City is very interesting even for a non-tech guy like me, I feel that the presentation itself is poorly executed and delivered. I feel that it is never effective to just talk on and on and on. Maybe some interaction is good. Ask the students questions sometime. Add some comedy or humour to the presentation. Bland slides and monotone voice, it is honestly easy to get bored and after a while, although the topic itself is interesting I can empathise with why people aren’t paying attention.

 

 

I prepared 3 quick questions for Ival:

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What do you usually do during the first period of RG?

-"Listen to the lecture, then do my homework if I don’t understand/dont have any interest on the topic"

 

Did you already make a lot of friends in RG? 

-"Only those who are in the same KG(kinky group)"

 

It seems that most of these lectures are done in Japanese, but how much of it do you really understand?

-"70% of it"

 

-Even from these 3 questions, I feel that there are several important points that can be concluded

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1. As expected the lecture is usually poorly executed, and even if it is a topic that he is interested in, half of the time he does’t completely understand the Japanese anyway. 

2. Making friends within the same KG is expected, but it would be nice if there was some way to make friends across KG. Of course, because GIGA students often take the same classes this is not an unreasonable objective but aside from sitting together listening to lectures, maybe there is a way for cross-KG interaction (such as events?)

3. 70% is what I would have estimated as well. I got the feeling he understands most of the Japanese, but there is still a big chunk of the Japanese he is not comprehending. Especially in a RG like this, its important to completely at least understand the language because the topic itself is IT related and not the easiest to grasp (from my perspective, but maybe it is different for people in KG such as KUMO who are more used to tech stuff                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

First Interview for GP2 Mr. Garett Sokoloff

Email: garretsokoloff@gmail.com

Links: Fame (1980) youtube video

Photo: write email to Mr. Sokoloff for photos and youtube.

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Intoduction;

Hi my name is Ken Kobayashi I am a 4th Year GIGA student in the Faculty of Policy Management. I am currently doing my field work in AQUA lab by working as a translator for any GIGA students who maybe need help understanding Japanese.

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SFC is slowly beginning to incorporate English into its classes with the creation of the GIGA programs, but other examples of this exist, which is also extended into RG (research group) like AQUA lab. 

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Introduction Question: “May I ask who you are/your background?”

-1994 国立公立研究所 half the students were presenting in Japanese and half of the students were presenting in English. He is a Jewish New Yorker, grandfather from Russia but back then it was Ukraine. He taught Japanese and Chinese in high school. He introduced Asian Literature especially Japanese literature to his school. He taught at South Bronks, FLAGS High school, and his second high school Performing Arts High School. Both schools are in New York, Manhattan. 

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Question #1: “I am in Aqua lab for a practical reason which is for translation, but what other factors should we consider for teaching language?”

-Mr. Sokoloff: “I think about that all the time, and I taught high school, not college students, college students choose a class but high class students have classes chosen for them. You have to sell the class, and prove to them that no matter how much they learn, their life really opens up and they have a different experience. Just try to show them that learning a new language really gives you a new way of feeling the world, your world becomes bigger, its like the taste buds in your head. Making the class interesting is fun and challenging but also important. I was very proud my class is not boring."

He does things like make mouse yakisoba etc…in his Japanese class. In Japanese literature class they went out to go eat tonkatsu-don at a restaurant. He also shows films like the grave of the fireflies. He teaches things about nanjing, unit 731. The most important is that you yourself have to be convinced that learning Japanese is a really important thing that you love, passion in the subject is the most important thing. That is something that a machine like Rosetta Stone cannot do. To share the love in a class room between a Japanese native and a non Japanese native is really exciting. Too many Japanese teachers become Japanese teachers because Japanese teachers because they think it is easy, they only have to teach grammar and vocabulary. A Japanese teacher or Mr. Sokoloff-Dogramagra (introduced him to this book) by Kyushu. He reads this book in French because this book was only translated French. 

 

Question #2: “If you had to design a setting where RG is going to integrate both native Japanese speakers as well as third culture and bilingual students, how would you approach designing such an environment?”

-There are different ways of doing this, but he is a literature person, so he believes in certain books such as 69 by Ryu Murakami, the book is about the student movement in Japan and the counter culture in Japan, and anti-vietnam movement. He would base it around literature, but literature has a very broad meaning. 崩壊するアメリカの教育　日本への警告 (Daiyu Suzuki)  page 93　“二重の責任”, according to Orent, there are 2 responsibilities, one is to protect children from the world. The other side of it is that we protect the old from the new. For example everyone is using cellphones but because of this young generation does not fall into books. No computers, cellphones or computers in the old age. Everyone read intensely. So as Orenz says, it is our responsibility to introduce the young generation to literature. Organising around text is really important, and we can do this back and forth between Japanese and English texts. They will see that there are some amazing things about the Japanese language that you cannot express in other languages. For example the word 恩師 which has a deeper meaning than the English translation of “indebted to teacher”. 

 

-in 1969 student revolt experience still exists at a Jazz Bar in Shimo Kitzawa, it is largely forgotten but you can still enter the Bar and experience different times outside of texts and this type of out of text experience is also very important for students learning about Japan. Not just the language, but the culture as well.

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Photo of Jazz Bar in Shimo Kitazawa:

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Video Clip of FAME (1980): (The school that Mr. Sokoloff taught in is featured in this film)

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Question #3: “If integration of native Japanese speakers and third culture students is to happen, surely language itself is not the only factor. What are some of the social factors for instance, which we must consider in order for this integration to happen?”

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Question #4: “Are there any programs outside of class and the lab which maybe useful for third culture students to adapt into Japanese speaking environment? For example, a student committee or event organizing groups that help create events for GIGA students to come together? If we were to create such a program outside the classroom, in your opinion how should we go about doing this?”

-In his high school his anime club, and many students from China Korea Taiwan Philippines, they did not know much English, so the anime club served as a place for foreign kids to come together and socially adapt and integrate as well as add a cultural flavour to the school.

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Question #5: “What are some of the most important elements of translation? Why can we not use computer translation for RG in SFC? Is there any advantage for human translation?"

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Reflection: This was my first real interview that I conducted for GP2, and I really wanted to show my notes unedited as I believe they show what I did well, and what I lacked during the interview more accurately. It was definitely a learning experience for me, and what I can point out is that for the next interview, I will definitely work on a few things.

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Point A: I need to try to keep the interview itself on topic more. Mr. Sokoloff pointed out that I should work on creating a series of sub-questions instead of big questions so that the interviewee has less work to do. For example, "please introduce yourself" is inherently a poor question because the interviewee then needs to do "all of the work" in thinking of a response. Instead, you should ask questions such as "where did you work previously?" as this enables the response that is more easy to respond, as well as getting a more accurate/specific reply.

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Point B: I need to try to manage my time wisely. I had about 20 minutes for this interview, and as you can see I did not get around to asking questions 3 and 5. Having a rough time sketch of each question beforehand is probably better preparation for getting around all of your questions answered in a timely and reasonable manner.

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Point C: I need to try to organize the main points I really want to cover and extract from the interviewee more. What is it that I really want to find out? It is good to prepare questions, but asking questions for the sake of asking them and not having them centered towards a clear purpose is lackluster. I need to rethink what it is that I really want to find out for my next interview and definitely organize my thoughts more in preparation.

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Side note: This interview was done on Thursday fifth period during FREEDMAN lab, and Professor ordered some food and drinks for us. I think this really helped because it made the interview setting more relaxed, and taught me the importance of hospitality during an interview. We had pizza and drinks during the interview, and we had a great time. Who said that interviews always need to be so tense?

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Observation for Japnology Class 13:50-2:20

December 1, 2016

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Professor Freedman writes 3 main questions on the board:

-What are you teaching?

-What is your process of teaching?

-How will you know that your students learned it?

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Reflection: 

1) Would you teach the lesson again?

1. Would you change the way you teach it?

2. Would you change the way you measure student’s mastery?

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The students seem to split into groups of 4-5 students and they seem to be presenting something up on the projection screen

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I am still unsure of exactly what they are going to present?

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It looks like they are going to teach third culture students like me and Dior some Japanese slang. Me, Dior and Mr. Sokoloff are the “students” for this period.

 

The first group used a video presentation where they explained how the Japanese slang “ワンチャン” is used. The video presentation was very interesting and utilised both Japanese and English subtitles. I felt that this made it very easy to understand what they were saying, as even I did not completely understand all of their Japanese.

 

The second group explained how to use the slang “やばい”. They did a live demonstration where they role played and demonstrated sentences using the slang. Their presentation slides showed the sentences they used in English, but the demonstration itself was in Japanese

 

The third group explained how to use the slang “マジ”. This was particularly interesting because they explained how there were 4 ways to use this slang. It is interesting how in the Japanese language, the same slang can be used in such various situations.

 

The fourth group explained how to use the slang “嘘”. There are apparently 2 ways in which this slang can be used, one expressing disbelief, and the other the straightforward expression “lie” which questions the validity of a statement. 

 

At the end of their mini presentations, the group then used a quiz, for example: 

person A: “終電は１０：００だよ"

person B: “えっ？ _____”

Choices: 1) ワンチャン 2) やばい 3) マジ 4) 嘘

—> They basically wanted us students to fill in the blank, multiple choice Q&A

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Points which we felt were missing:

-The Japanese students kind of just stood up at the front and did’t welcome us or introduce us in any way. 

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-Although they did have a interactive quiz at the end, I felt as though instead of fill in the blank, it would have been more interesting if they had exercises where we actually had to make our own sentences using the Japanese slang we just learned. 

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-Instead of full Japanese sentences, it would also be interesting if they demonstrated and showed us what they were saying in stead of just saying it. For example, 眠い or “sleepy” in Japanese could be shown by acting sleepy instead of saying it (if that makes sense)

 

Observation of AQUA Lab 12/1/2016

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Kazu Takashio Ph.D. (associate profesor) is doing a lecture explaining his research as well as his background in C++. 

 

The lecture itself is completely in Japanese, but the slides are interestingly completely in English. 

 

It would be a pity if there were some GIGA students in this lecture because the lecture itself is in Japanese, but very interesting. Professor Takashio works closely with the Japanese navy, and is also doing some research on robots which is a topic I personally never really explored to any capacity. He also explains other things such as electronic devices (keyboards) that physically lift up after a set amount of words typed. This serves as a reminder to the user to take a break and stretch. 

 

I am taking a look around the classroom but there is not a single GIGA student in class this period. 

 

This week, because there is no GIGA students, I would like to do 2 things to use my time in AQUA lab as productively as possible:

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1. Prepare a set of interview questions to ask M. Takaki, who used to previously work as a translator for GIGA students in Aqua lab. So he is kind of like my senior in this regard, so as someone who did the same thing I am doing currently, I feel as though he would be a great source of information.

2. Finalize observation notes for the Japonolgy Class today, and the subsequent presentations which followed because that gave me a lot of insight into how to teach non-native language to third culture students and was a very interesting class.

 

Questions for M. Takaki:

 

1. Please give a brief introduction of yourself. 

2. How long have you been in AQUA lab?

3. Previously you were working as a translator in AQUA lab but in your opinion is this useful to have in the lab?  What is your opinion on this?

4. I noticed that the lecture itself is completely in Japanese, but how do you think that we can change the system so that non-native Japanese speakers can more easily understand the lectures?

5. Do you think it is a possibility for more English RG to form in SFC-SFS? 

6. How can we design RG sessions so that even a GIGA student can join?

7. What was your experience like previously working on translation and GIGA support in this lab?

8. How do you think we can change/develop this program, or should we even develop/change the program at all? Do we even need human translators?

9. What is AQUA lab anyway? If you were to explain  what AQUA lab is in a sentence, how would you describe it?

10. From your experience in working with GIGA students, you must have had some impressions/opinions. What are your impressions?

11. I think that AQUA lab is a computer-skill based lab, but the topic is not exactly easy to comprehend by any means. If you had to take a difficult subject like programming and teach it to both GIGA and native Japanese speaking students simultaneously, how would you accomplish this?

12. Are there any other coalition of RG like AQUA lab throughout SFC? If no, what are some fields of study where RG like AQUA lab may be possible? (I feel as though this would be important because more RG gives GIGA students more options in joining a lab, as well as a field of study for their graduation projects)

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Example of Professor Takashio's lecture: As you can see, the text itself on the slides were in English, but the lecture was done in Japanese. This was maybe efficient from GIGA student's perspective who maybe have lackluster Japanese as it enables them to close the distance in comprehension and get a better gist of lecture content.

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Example of the lecture as shown via video clip: I think that the video clip illustrates some of my points/observations.

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Observation for AQUA Lab 11/24/2016

-Today I only spot 2 students for AQUA Lab

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-On first lecture of class Professor Ucu suggested I try to sit close to the students, usually I sit close to Tuan but nowdays I find myself sitting by Jie all the time. We know each other from Thursday 2nd Period class, we are both taking Modern History of Japan; Professor Eiji Oguma.

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-A lof of these students GIGA, are in their 3rd or 2nd Year, and in some ways it is a pity. I am a 4th year, but technically a 6th Year as I took 2 years off school. Therefore, many of these students I don't know and I feel that there is somehwat of a generation gap. The GIGA students that I did know, even the ones in AUQA lab mostly graduated already.

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-I want to focus today on a somewhat interesting point: technically I am here for translation support, but the real truth is that especially in the fall semester, there are not many first years and second years that are in AQUA lab. So for fall semester, as Professor Ucu predicted, I rarely do any actual translation work. The real reason as to why I am in the lab is to not only work on my ethnography but also be there as a friend to some of the GIGA students in this RG. 

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-I often times find myself sitting and doing nothing, as students in AQUA lab are already for the most part well established within the lab, as they tend to be in AQUA lab for a while. I cannot help but sometimes question if I am really actually needed here, perhaps it is a pessimistic way of looking at it, but it is honestly how I sometimes feel.

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-This worries me, because whoever takes over for me after I graduate might experience something similar; perhaps it doesn't help that I am not exactly the most sociable person around, and so interestingly I think someone who is ideal for this kind of job maybe a student who is an extrovert and good at establishing connections quickly with other students.

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-As an update on last lab, none of the students from AQUA lab were able to make it to the Yaki Imo event unfortunately. Nonetheless, even if they do not show up I believe that it is important to at least have these events and provide an option to attend if students wish.

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-Sometimes I really regret that I had no translation help or any access to GIGA events back when I was a first and second year at university. I believe that first and second year is a crucial time for a lot of GIGA students especially, because they left their homes and foreign countries to all of a sudden move to Japan, and integrating into not just the culture here but also the social life in University is a huge step to take. I really regret that I wasn't able to have this kind of help or connections because it largely led to my downfall as a student. I went from being a 3.87 GPA dilligent student in high school to a student who lost motivation and hope in University, and an important point to remember I think is that students are not robots; their social life is an integral part of their student life on campus. To an extent, their student life and quality of feeling welcomed and fitting in also affects their happiness and ability to excel in school. For this reason I think even if I am not always translating or actually doing anything, just being in lab as another GIGA student and at least occaisionally offering events to go to, or sometimes being an extra ear that listens to problems even outside of school is hopefully somewhat assuring and useful to other GIGA students in this lab. Is this reality? I don"t know. I honestly don"t know, but that is what I am hoping for.

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-I talked to an Indonesian student who was my classmate in one of my GIGA classes last semester, and he told me that basically AQUA lab is like a review period even if there is a lecture going on. Review period as in a time to catch up on schoolwork (they are suppose to be catching up on their lab work actually)

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-First period seems to usually be when GIGA students are here. Sometimes some of them like Jie also stay for the second half of the lab but most of the time it seems like they are only here for the first half.

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-I am definitely interested to see what happens in AQUA lab during the spring semester as well.

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-Students seem to sit in a sporadic manner. Some GIGA students sit together like Jie, but most of the time they seem to sit in clusters according to RG group? 

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DOTOUR Ethnography Notes for 11/6/2016; Project English C FREEDMAN, Tuesday 3rd Period

-Not particularly directly related to AQUA Lab, but this was a important session where me Shu and Adji formed a team and practiced making observation notes by going to Dotour on Sunday, 11/6 at 10am.

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-4 smoking people (3 men, 1 woman)

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-18 non-smoking people

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-11 men : 11 women = 1:1 ratio

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-Old people (seems more than 60) = 6

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-Students (18~20 years old?) = 4 (including us)

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-5 people were just eating or drinking.

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-9 people were reading or studying.

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-We decided to interview 2 people, to ask them why they decided to come to Dotour;

-> old woman, 63 years old.

-"Why did you come to Dotour today?"

-She doesn't come to Dotour often. Starbucks is 400 yen, Dotour 220 yen, she doesn't always come to Dotour because it is expensive. McDonalds coffee is 120 yen and thus cheaper, but she doesn't go to Mac because there are many young kids, and Dotour is more expensive but she comes here when she wants to relax.

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->old man, 57 years old.

-"Why did you come to Dotour today?"

-He came to Dotour because he wanted some time away from home. If he stays at home his wife is always complaining to him, his main purpose of coming to Dotour was for some peace and quiet. 

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The interviews itself was short and sloppy, but I do want to point out the use of visual sketch, which was something new and did not try before until now:

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Observation for AQUA Lab 10/27/2016
-it's surprising how much English the native Japanese students seem to comprehend

-GIGA students actually seem to be doing homework during this period.

-today's lecture was done completely in English

-I know I am supposed to be observing the GIGA students, but I question the efficiency of Aqua. When speaking in Japanese there is no form of English translation and when speaking in English there is no Japanese translation so it's difficult to gauge exactly how much students here are really comprehending

-I am counting 3 GIGA students today.

-so far I haven't done much other than make these observations

-professor asked me a question regarding the speed of light which is c=3x10^8. I think there needs to be some background knowledge on the topics being discussed

-I'm supposed to be translating but it's often times difficult to consider exactly when I am able to talk to whichever GIGA student I am dealing with. I suspect that different professors have different personalities, some may be less lenient to any kind of small talk even if it's for translation

-Jie just asked me about another class. I think maybe my job is not only translation but trying to make sure that GIGA students in the lab are happy or maybe more realistically achievable is "comfortable".

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-He is scared because he missed his presentation and he thinks Professor will flunk him. We are classmates in Thursday class, I believe it is easier to connect to other students when they are also your classmates. Therefore, whoever takes over after me when I graduate should probably be a GIGA student themselves, so they will already know some of the students in the lab beforehand. 

-As such, before offering help I think it's important to be their friend. To try to mitigate the awkwardness. I'm not the most outgoing person in the world, but whoever does take over for me next year will need to be comfortable in building bridges with other people.

-I did invite Jie and a few other GIGA students in this lab to go to Thursday freedman lab's yaki imo event from 6pm. I think it's important to give GIGA students the opportunity to connect with each other and create interpersonal relationships

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-Although I invited 3 students from AQUA lab today, I am not sure how many of them will actually show up for the event

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-They said they would "Maybe come" but "maybe" is probably a rough equivalent to "probably not".

-Second half of aqua lab seems to be presentation like usual.

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-Presentations are done completely in Japanese

 

Observation of AQUA Lab 10/20/2016

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-As usual all of the explanation continues to be in Japanese

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-Same as last week, Tuan does’t seem to be in class, and I only currently spot 2 GIGA students.

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-Explanation of “course material” or presentation is about SSH. Even if it was held in your native tongue, this is not an easy topic to get a grasp of. If you do not have subtitles or any method to hear this in your first language I unfortunately think it is impossible for GIGA students to be able to grasp the content of the presentation at hand.

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-Perhaps it will be useful if we were able to set a exterior link for GIGA students with slides translated into English.

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-I do not necessarily think it is the only reason, but one of the big reasons as to why there is a shortage of GIGA students is the language barrier in my opinion. 

 

-SA at the front did ask us to raise our hands if we had any questions in Japanese. I do not want to make assumptions about his english level but I am pretty certain that his English level is not good.

 

-Despite being a part of this lab for roughly 3 weeks now, I still fail to really see the purpose of these 3 hour sessions. The content of lectures itself seem to shift between individual presentations and course activities designed perhaps to help foster the ability to learn things in the technical sense (for example proficiency with SSH)

 

-In my opinion, many of the labs gathered here seem to be computer-based research labs. I think the GIGA population of students is actually quite a small %, significant but obviously a minority. Thting because type of RG (research group) focus on a very specific field (computer and tech-based) which would further serve to cut down on the number of students who may potentially be interested in the study

 

-What if, we had a coalition of labs for other research field topic based research labs (for example, a joint session between Freedman, Hasebe, Mukesh labs) etc…maybe it is our imperative duty to give GIGA students not only the option to be able to attend a lab with only English proficiency, but also the option to pursue a field that they are truly interested in.

 

-I do believe that this point is important to consider; I think currently at SFC there is an imbalance between the number of RG and research labs available to native Japanese speakers, and GIGA students. Japanese students or even GIGA students with competent Japanese ability have more options and a larger pool of research groups to choose from.

 

-Before you can even consider to make a coalition of research labs, I think it is even more important that there is first a larger group of research labs who also tolerate a high lvl of English competence.

-The SA is moving on to the next slide despite knowing for a fact that not everyone is finished with the assignment at hand. 

 

-Furthermore, there is many students raising their hand who obviously need help, and yet there seems to be a shortage of SA to regularly give students the proactive help they seek. 

 

-Many GIGA students do have a certain level of Japanese ability. But this ability does vary. What if we were to figure out a way to assign GIGA students to certain Japanese level, and only those with certain Japanese level are able to join certain RG.

 

-In Project English C, we only allow students with a certain TOEFL level and score to take the classes. What if we were to systematically organise a way to measure GIGA students Japanese ability and set a precedence as to what is the level of Japanese these students need to join each RG in question.

 

-It is very interesting because there does seem to be a fluctuating number of students who show up every week. As far as I can tell, no attendance seems to really be taken? Which then leads me to question, is this whole 3 hour session mandatory or is it completely optional. 

 

-Aside from Tuan, I never really needed to help any of the GIGA students,  which in turn leads me to believe that most of these students who are GIGA students maybe have some degree of Japanese ability, perhaps greater than I initially suspected. But what is their level?

 

-Maybe this is an area where the Japanese Lab in Lambda-kan can come and help. Sugihara-sensei created a proficiency test for her Japanese classes which effectively measures a students Japanese ability. Perhaps we can use this test? Because the test already exists we can save resources and time if we were to begin utilizing it. 

 

-I worry that translation on the spot causes various problems, but it creates 3 problems in particular.

a) live translation means talking. Talking means it could potential be a disturbance to surrounding students.

b) live translation can only be done 1:1 especially in the way the classroom is laid out, where only 2 people can sit per desk.

c) live translation is instant; perhaps it is better to seek a pre-recorded audio OR a visual alternative which gives students more time to process the information. 

 

-Interchange seems to be limited, as students only seem to sit within their own lab groups. 

 

-Maybe fun events etc…could be used to close the gap between GIGA and native students. I think they could serve to be a opportunity for students to establish new relationships in general. 

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-Maybe there will be a change of demography in the spring! More GIGA students maybe?

 

-I feel like currently there is a lot of GIGA and english classes for offer, but not enough labs/RG

 

-GIGA student from Taiwan (forgot his name) sitting in front of me is working on his in-class assignment. It is completely in Japanese. He seems to be doing fine. 

 

-Which again confirms my suspicion that GIGA students here have high Japanese language competency. 

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-Maybe it is because all of this talk during this lab is on a topic I am not interested in, but the topic itself is incredibly boring. Maybe we can find a way to make this lab more fun? But I wouldn’t know how to do it either

 

-Classroom is hot as hell, AC in this classroom is either shit or just doesn’t exist. It’s almost winter yet it’s like a sauna in here. 

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-Taiwan student’s name is Peter. I think he was in one of my Japanese skill classes. 日本語スキル

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