Designing Online Language Courses : Lessons Learned from Teaching Vietnamese Language and Culture for Japanese Learners

This paper shows the lessons learned after several courses on “Basic Vietnamese language and culture” targeting Japanese university students and adult learners, which have been conducted in 2020. Influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, the materials and methods prepared for conventional classroom have been adapted and modified to suit the online platform. Although intended for beginners, these courses have applied and integrated approach for teaching a language and its corresponding culture in line with principles of adult learning, active learning, and problem-based learning. The lessons were designed using a wide range of techniques such as videos, pictures, anecdotes, crosswords, open-ended question, quizzes using multiple choice answers followed by analysis of each choice, online test. For each lesson, the learners were introduced to new vocabulary and basic expressions related to a socio-cultural theme such as history, national character, medical system, sightseeing, business etc. Looking from the perspective of both learners and teachers by evaluations and reflections, these courses have shown some positive experiences and suggested points for improvement of online language classroom in the future.

© The International Academic Forum
Users may access, download, copy, translate, text and data mine, redistribute, display or adapt the articles for non-commercial purposes provided that users follow the guidelines set out in the IAFOR User License(https://iafor.org/iafor-user-license/).