The Language Cafe at Okayama University is a unique social environment that allows exchange students from other countries to interact directly with Japanese students attending the University. Likewise, Japanese students are able to meet and speak to people in English, as well as other languages like German, Korean, Chinese, French, and more. Every International Exchange Student brings with them information about their language and culture that Japanese students use as resources for their own language studies.
The Cafe serves as a comfortable means of meeting new people, making friends, speaking languages, and bringing many cultures together through academic and non-academic activities.
The Cafe serves as a comfortable means of meeting new people, making friends, speaking languages, and bringing many cultures together through academic and non-academic activities.
My Contribution
At L-Cafe, I served as an English Conversationalist (英会話)teacher in order to help teach Japanese students proper grammar, vocabulary, and speaking techniques, in addition to correcting their homework or assisting them with assignments. I also taught a media class each week based on an the movie Forrest Gump; my students and I would watch 10-15 minutes of the movie in English without subtitles, I would ask them how much they understood and to explain what we watched, and then we would review it again with Japanese subtitles. I found the course challenging, not just because of the language barrier, but also due to the cultural barrier. Some phrases or words used in an English movie are easy for a native speaker to understand, but very difficult to explain to someone (non-native) who does not have an equivalent phrase in their own language.
The Language cafe also hosted events, such as the World Kitchen, Frozen Movie Night, Lemonade stand, and a group trip to a major league baseball game.
The Language cafe also hosted events, such as the World Kitchen, Frozen Movie Night, Lemonade stand, and a group trip to a major league baseball game.