The website
The Japanese Book Review website started in 2015 with the support of the Five Colleges Innovative Language Teaching grant and Smith College Educational Technology Services as a part of the Five College Extensive Reading (ER) course curriculum. In 2017, because the class activity on book reviews was replaced with Moodle, the website separated from the Five College ER course. However, the website remained and has renewed aiming to serve Japanese learners who are interested in reading Japanese books for study as well as for pleasure.
This website has two components: Japanese book reviews posted by students studying Japanese at Smith College, and original Tadoku books (2017-current) created by students taking my Japanese courses at Smith College.
The Japanese book reviews
The Japanese Program at Smith has been incorporating tadoku exercises in the beginning through advanced course curricula. On this website, students post reviews of books of their choices after they read them.
The purpose is 1) to share their reading experiences of Japanese books and help find books to read in the near future, 2) to build a tadoku community online where students connect beyond their Japanese levels to give advice, reflect and encourage each other. Moreover, this website is open to public viewing in order to share the book reviews with any Japanese learners who are interested in reading Japanese books.
Tadoku Books by Students
“Connecting with other Japanese learners and contributing to public scholarship.”
In conjunction with Tadoku exercises, some of my Japanese courses have been working on the project called “Tadoku Books by Learners of Japanese” creating original Tadoku books for other Japanese learners since 2017. The stories were written by Japanese learners who intriguingly express their unique experiences, thoughts, and ideas by incorporating multiple languages and cultures. Students work as individuals or in groups and write original stories or rewrite copyright-free materials for Japanese graded readers. Copyright-free images and photographs are used in their books. Some students draw, photoshop, or use mixed materials to create images for their stories. Students have two feedback sessions to share their in-progress work and give feedback to each other before finalizing. The final products are published for reading online. All copyrights are reserved by the authors of the books.
学習者が作成したオリジナル多読本
スミス大学の日本語クラスでは、2017年の春学期から、多読をしながら日本語学習者のための多読向けの本を作成するプロジェクトを行っています。
ここでは、スミス大学で日本語を勉強している学生が書いた多読向けのストーリー、Yomu Yomu Beginners（初級者向け） 、Kids （小学生向け）、Linguistic Landscape （言語景観） 、 Diversity（多様性） シリーズをご紹介します。（レベル別のページはこちらへ）
ストーリーのレベル付けは、基本的にNPO多言語多読のレベルの目安を参考にしていますが、学習者の日本語学習や多読経験からの観点も取り入れてレベルを付けています。
基本的に、習った文法・語彙・表現・漢字を使いながら、学生が書ける日本語でストーリーを書きました。また、読者が辞書を使わず、フットノートなしでも読めるように、デザインや話の構成を工夫しています。
イラストや写真は、著作権フリー、学生オリジナルのもの、または所有者から許可を得たものを使用し、ストーリーは学生のオリジナルが中心です。リライト版をする場合は、著作権のないものを選んでいます。
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
ことばの学習者によって書かれた創造性豊かで多様性に富んだ多読本を、どうぞお楽しみください！
よろしければ、感想など、atakahas@smith.edu （髙橋）までお送りくださると嬉しいです。
Project Partners at Smith College:
- Mario Valdebenito, Applications Administrator, Educational Technology Services
- Atsuko Takahashi, Senior Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Please contact Atsuko Takahashi (atakahas@smith.edu) for any questions and comments about the website.