JAPN 311 Communicative Competence: Speaking and Listening is a course described as “primarily a conversation course to develop linguistic and cultural proficiency in verbal communication.” Assignments completed in this course include -but are not limited to- a video project, telecollaborative conversations through TalkAbroad, communication activities on VoiceThread, weekly podcasts, video comprehension assignments, self-check quizzes for grammar and vocabulary, vocabulary building exercises, the creation of an E-Portfolio, and a final oral exam.

The video above is the video project assignment completed by me and my group. Through this assignment, students were able to identify examples of food adaptation in Japan, understand food adaptation is not unique to Japan, and identify basic format of a Japanese TV restaurant guide. We were learned to use and identify pragmatic features such as backchannel, filler, repetition, and confirmation questions that are prevalent in Japanese conversation and compared them with those used in English.