Tokiko SERA

Growing interest in “question formulation” activities highlights their role in fostering critical thinking. In Japanese language education, efforts to enhance question-asking abilities are emerging. This study analyzes beginner-level Japanese textbooks to explore how question-formation is taught. Results reveal a higher use of interrogative-based questions, a focus on simple explanatory questions, and the presence of tasks involving higher-order cognitive skills, even at early stages. These findings offer valuable insights for improving Japanese language instruction.

This paper describes a lecture and workshop that were conducted with the aim of introducing Easy Japanese to medical social workers in Tochigi prefecture. The lecture was about foreigners in Tochigi prefecture, what "Easy Japanese" means, and the needs of Easy Japanese. The workshop conducted involved interaction between the participants and foreigners to facilitate communication with each other. Participants held high opinions about both the lecture and the workshop because they were instrumental in helping the participants know the points of communication with foreigners in Japanese and understand what foreigners need.

This paper introduces the workshop "Yasashii Nihongo: Easy Japanese" for nursing students. The medical field is diversifying due to increasing foreigners as clients and non-native Japanese speaking nurses. In order to accommodate this increasing diversity nurses need to adjust their communication skills. The workshop had two sections. The first section was a practical task based group activity where non-native speakers of Japanese acted as clients and native Japanese as nurses. The second section consisted of an exchange and discussion between the non-native speakers and the native Japanese speakers. This opportunity gave the students, who rarely contact foreigners, to increase their awareness of others and develop new ideas of communication.