Note to reader: This lesson is usually taught in mid February. Currently I am posting writings from my graduate program in preparation for a speech in November.
This is UNIT 3 in the Possible Selves program: Thinking of our hopes, expectations & fears as a Japanese language user. Today’s post features the worksheets for the Japanese language focusing on adjectives while learning about Maneki Neko. Some activities may be just beyond what you or your students are able to process, but give it a try. You may be surprised at what you can do.
You can find links to the other units here: Possible Selves as a Japanese Language User
MANEKI NEKO 招き猫
Step 1: Learn 5 new kanji (招 猫 手 右 左）
Step 2: Listen to the song: 招き猫ねネコネコ
- Listen and then record your observations
Step 3: Annotate the lyrics to 招き猫ねネコネコ
- Novice: new learners may only be able to identify the 4 new kanji and the katakana. Encourage them to notice the differences between the 3 scripts, and how we can distinguish the different words and particles.
- Intermediate: after annotating the lyrics, use a Japanese-English dictionary such as jisho.org to find the meaning of the verbs. Remind them that most action verbs come after を.
Step 4 Let’s Discover: 招き猫
- For all learners, identify the adjectives as い or な and practice describing the cats (this is a blue cat, that is a pink cat, that is not a yellow cat, etc.)
- For intermediate and experienced learners, use the kanji-English dictionary or the kanji look up feature at jisho.org to identify the individual kanji. Some kanji they may already know (来 愛 安）Encourage them to look at the kanji to determine if they know any before they begin with the dictionary work. After they identify the basic meaning of each individual kanji, have them guess the meaning of the pairs combined. This is the meaning of the color for each of the Maneki Neko.
Step 5 The Survey: Which 招き猫 is right for me?
- For all learners: Take a short survey in Japanese to discover which Maneki Neko is right for you
https://forms.gle/HqJKmAtJC3AdBMyo6
- Record the results on the worksheet. (Sensei-gata, if you would like a copy of your students’ answers, please contact me using the form below. I will forward them to you in a google doc.)
I’ll admit that this lesson may be challenging for beginning students. In Unit 2 students experienced using the kanji-English dictionary for the first time. They should have more confidence using this time to find the basic meaning of individual characters. This is also a good time for them to see how meanings can be determined by merging the two meanings together. This is a higher level thought process than simply looking up the pair together. We want them to lean how to catch the gist of something they are unfamiliar with and tease out the meaning on their own. This will build confidence and confidence builds motivation.
Click here for the Thinking about the Japanese language worksheets
Tomorrow I will post the Creating section of this unit where students use their new knowledge of Maneki Neko to research with authentic materials in order to create a cultural artifact aligned with Step 3 of Possible Selves. They will also think about and record in English or their first language their hopes, expectations and fears of learning Japanese, finding a job, and being a good human.
Let me know what you think of these multiliteracy activities in the comments section.
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