The time I spent working with my local community through service learning was conducted through an organization called Community Partnership for Youth (CPY). I spent time at one of their local service sites Del Rel Woods Elementary, where I worked with two other colleagues teaching lessons concerning Japanese language and culture to anywhere from 8-13 elementary school students. Although a few of our students had prior knowledge from previous Japanese courses, a majority of the students did not, so this was an opportunity for us to share with them a culture, language, and way of life that was originally there own and in doing so broaden their horizons.
Working with students who are primarily of a Spanish/English speaking background did present some challenges to me owing to the fact that I did not grow up nor live under the same circumstances that they are currently, and teaching those students about a culture that is not originally my own also presented its own challenges. Working along side a fellow Japanese major student from California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), and a short-term exchange student from Japan when creating the lesson plans for each weeks class and also conducting those lessons presented a very interesting learning opportunity when it came to multi-cultural team dynamics.
Overall, I believe that this service learning experience benefited both myself and those classmates and community members that I worked along side with in a lot of ways. Giving my students the educational opportunity to experience Japanese culture and language, an opportunity that I did not have at their age, was an appropriate way for me to give back to my community. I am very thankful for having received the opportunity to experience what it was like to serve as a teacher, creating lesson plans, working directly with the students, reflect on each teaching experience in my second language, and engaging with course materials in a discussion based setting that touched upon serious social issues as well as education.
If you would like to see samples of the lesson plans that we created, the reflections that I wrote, or any other course work that I completed through this service learning opportunity, you can find them linked just below this text.
Working with students who are primarily of a Spanish/English speaking background did present some challenges to me owing to the fact that I did not grow up nor live under the same circumstances that they are currently, and teaching those students about a culture that is not originally my own also presented its own challenges. Working along side a fellow Japanese major student from California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB), and a short-term exchange student from Japan when creating the lesson plans for each weeks class and also conducting those lessons presented a very interesting learning opportunity when it came to multi-cultural team dynamics.
Overall, I believe that this service learning experience benefited both myself and those classmates and community members that I worked along side with in a lot of ways. Giving my students the educational opportunity to experience Japanese culture and language, an opportunity that I did not have at their age, was an appropriate way for me to give back to my community. I am very thankful for having received the opportunity to experience what it was like to serve as a teacher, creating lesson plans, working directly with the students, reflect on each teaching experience in my second language, and engaging with course materials in a discussion based setting that touched upon serious social issues as well as education.
If you would like to see samples of the lesson plans that we created, the reflections that I wrote, or any other course work that I completed through this service learning opportunity, you can find them linked just below this text.
| commmunity_scan.pdf |
| service_learning_final_presentation.pdf |
| lessonplan_10.doc |
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| site_reflection_10.docx |
