Speaker
Description
This practice-oriented presentation reports on authentic assessment in a Colombian university elective, “Japanese for Manga and Anime,” where mixed-level undergraduates collaboratively explored Japanese language and popular culture. The course replaced traditional exams with creative, collaborative tasks (e.g., thematic presentations, seiyuu projects) and flexible quizzes to build vocabulary, intercultural awareness, critical analysis, and learner agency. Participants will gain adaptable ideas for authentic assessment in non-regular language courses that integrate students’ interests.
References
- Cabaña Rojas, I. (2021). Rethinking the discursive relevance of pop culture in Japan’s soft power in Chile: A perspective from Japanese language education. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 21(3). https://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol21/iss3/cabana_rojas.html
- Japan Foundation. (2016). Survey report on Japanese-language education abroad 2015. Japan Foundation. https://www.jpf.go.jp/e/project/japanese/survey/result/survey15.html
- Mueller, J. (2005). The authentic assessment toolbox: Enhancing student learning through online faculty development. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 1–7. https://jolt.merlot.org/documents/VOL1No1mueller.pdf
- Razali, A. B. (2014). Online manga and anime in promoting language learning and literacy practices. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Computers in Education (pp. 987–996). https://library.apsce.net/index.php/ICCE/article/download/754/693
- Thomas, J. W. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning. Autodesk Foundation. http://www.bobpearlman.org/BestPractices/PBL_Research.pdf
- Wiggins, G. (1990). The case for authentic assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 2(2), 1–3. https://openpublishing.library.umass.edu/pare/article/id/1292/
Short summary
This practice-oriented presentation reports on authentic assessment in a Colombian university elective, “Japanese for Manga and Anime,” where mixed-level undergraduates collaboratively explored Japanese language and popular culture. The course replaced traditional exams with creative, collaborative tasks (e.g., thematic presentations, seiyuu projects) and flexible quizzes to build vocabulary, intercultural awareness, critical analysis, and learner agency. Participants will gain adaptable ideas for authentic assessment in non-regular language courses that integrate students’ interests.
Keywords
Authentic assessment
Project-based learning
Japanese popular culture
Collaborative language learning
Abstract
This practice-oriented presentation describes authentic assessment in a Colombian university language elective course: “Japanese for Manga and Anime”, where undergraduates with diverse majors and Japanese proficiency collaboratively explored Japanese language and popular culture. Taught mainly in Spanish with leveled Japanese language, the course aimed to develop students’ understanding of common Japanese terms used in manga and anime, their awareness of cultural representations, and their ability to critically analyze these texts.
Following principles of authentic assessment (Wiggins, 1990; Mueller, 2005), the course replaced traditional written exams with performance-based tasks across the semester, including thematic group presentations, creative assignments, and a final seiyuu (voice acting) project, together with individual work and flexible language quizzes. These activities reflect key features of project-based learning in language classrooms (Thomas, 2000), emphasizing sustained inquiry, collaboration, and meaningful multimodal artifacts, and build on research that positions manga and anime as powerful entry points into language and literacy practices and Japanese language learning motivation (Razali, 2014; Japan Foundation, 2015; Cabaña Rojas, 2021).
Student perception surveys, written reflections, and classroom observations suggest gains in intercultural awareness, critical analysis of cultural discourses, and sensitivity to Japanese prosody, alongside increased participation, collaboration, and learner agency, despite challenges in time management and balancing participation. The presentation will offer practical, adaptable, and concrete examples of authentic assessment tasks, peer-feedback routines, and evaluation criteria that supported Japanese vocabulary and expression learning, intercultural analysis, and learner agency in a “non-regular” language course grounded in learners’ interests and mixed proficiency levels.
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday or Sunday |
|---|---|
| Title | Popular Culture as a Platform for Authentic Japanese Language Assessment |