Japan Foundation Collaborative Creativity

Full Project name: Collaborative Creativity for Japanese Language Education: a Multidimensional Online Project in Response to COVID-19

Active from/to: December 2020 – March 2021

Research Team: Prof. Marcella Mariotti (Principal Investigator), M.A. Federica Tocci (Project Coordinator), Dr. Ayuko Kashima-Utsumi (Project Assistant), Dr. Alessandro Mantelli (IT Developer), Ms. Giulia Verzini (Student Tutor & Supervisor)

Participants: 31 students from Master and Bachelor courses in Japanese Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

What is this project about?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, another general lockdown has been imposed on Italy this year and face-to-face teaching has been suspended nationwide, making it impossible for students of Japanese language enrolled at Ca’ Foscari University to participate in classroom activities together with their teachers and colleagues, as well as to pursue their studies abroad.
Student interest and focus in their studies has been undermined not only by the mental fatigue accumulated through these emergency measures, but also by the sudden shift to remote teaching and learning. Starting from September 2020, dual teaching (in-class and online) has been introduced at Ca’ Foscari University in order to support a gradual recovery of educational practices; however, Japanese language students still had little possibility to apply for internship programs (mandatory for graduation) both in Italy and Japan, due to the decline in employment rate and border restrictions; most importantly, they faced many difficulties in finding renovated motivation to commit to the new learning methods.
On the other hand, professors and teachers as well had to face a variety of technical and emotional challenges in their everyday teaching and learning. This project has been designed as a means to foster and support Japanese language students and teaching staff motivation and creativity, a response to the lack of stimuli and the time of uncertainty which are currently affecting higher education.
It consisted of a a special multidimensional internship program, involving and/or addressing adjunct professors, newly graduates, graduate and undergraduate students in Japanese language curricula to further implement an online platform dedicated to Japanese language teaching and learning: JaLea and its satellite JaLea Business, combined to the first online free Japanese-Italian dictionary a4edu.

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