JSL: Culture Reading Materials
These reading materials were developed for the first year language course taught in the fall term of 2008 to enhance students' understanding of Japanese culture as well as reinforcing grammatical patterns, vocabulary, and kanji introduced in each lesson. In this course, we used the textbook, Japanese: The Spoken Language Part I, and covered up to Lesson 7 in one term (50 minute class, five days a week, nine weeks). Also, we introduced the short-form (verb, いadjective, copula) and modifying sentence patterns which are explained in the later lessons in this textbook series.
I called these reading as 'Today's Message', meaning a message from myself to introduce bits and pieces of Japanese culture each day. These culture readings were introduced at the beginning of the class, spending for about 5-8 minutes of the class time. The class was taught entirely in Japanese, and these reading were no exceptions.
The photos used for these readings were taken by myself unless otherwise noted. Click each lesson to reveal readings in that lesson.