Universität Wien

150107 UE Japanese Grammar II (2021S)

6.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 15 - Ostasienwissenschaften
Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English, Japanese

Lecturers

Classes

The course’s nominal start date is March 3rd. Until further notice it will be held asynchronously online in principle, i.e. without fixed dates and times where everybody has to be present, either physically or virtually. However, the lecturer reserves the right to require the students’ presence—either kind, even at short notice—and/or switch back to conventional on-site classes entirely. Any such synchronous elements will happen within the course’s nominal time slot, on Wednesdays, 11:15–2 o’clock. Please make sure you’re available during that time!


Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course will continue right where Japanese Grammar I left off, covering more basic grammar, vocabulary and kanji. It is meant to be taken in tandem with Business Japanese [= Japanese Communication II] and Japanese Writing Systems, please register for all three. As such, both Grammar I and Japanese Communication (and their prerequisites) are PREREQUISITES for this course.

Together, these provide students with basic skills in the Japanese language as well as the tools to build on those skills on their own. At the end of the second semester students should be able to
* communicate orally in various everyday situations
* understand basic spoken and written Japanese texts [the latter will require extensive use of dictionaries], including business- or economics-related ones aimed at a general audience
* read ~450 of the most common kanji
* produce select kinds of written communication [with the help of a computer], e. g. e-mails
* expand on their knowledge of Japanese in self-study, using dictionaries, grammar references etc.
The course will also cover everything required to pass the language part of the StEOP exam for Japanese Studies majors, enabling students to take more advanced language courses, if they wish to specialise further [some German req.].

Grammar II will continue to focus on constructively building an understanding of Japanese grammar and vocabulary by way of Japanese-English translation, providing a base for the other two courses to build upon.

Students prepare for each lesson with the help of the grammar notes provided, ask questions on the forum and/or chat. They then submit a written translation of the lesson, which will be made available to all for review and comparison purposes, followed by another scheduled q&a period and feedback from the lecturer. Finally, there may be questions to answer pertaining to that lesson.
Unless otherwise noted, students’ contributions are shared with all participants (as they would be in a classroom setting).

The plan is to cover 1 lesson from the textbook per week (excluding holidays), starting with L11; as well as ~18 new kanji/week. Please budget at least 8 h/week for self-study.

N.B.: You will need a computer [PC or notebook] with internet access, as well as a means of recording audio, and scanning handwritten assignments.

Assessment and permitted materials

This course uses continuous assessment (hat immanenten Prüfungscharakter). As such students may be asked to perform a variety of tasks, online and/or offline, with little or no prior announcement, and their entire activity over the course of the semester may be used for assessment (see below for details).

The written translations of and questions on lessons will make up the bulk of tasks, but they may also, for example, include kanji & vocabulary tests, graded reading (fluency & pronunciation), reading comprehension and grammar exercises, dictation, listening and listening comprehension exercises, research on specific points of grammar, and so forth.
Insofar as that includes test-like tasks, that is, work to be completed within a specific time period on the order of minutes to a few hours, these are full open book if held online, but no materials or aids are generally permitted if held offline. Such synchronous tasks are scheduled within the time-slot allocated to the course, or at another time more convenient to all participants.

Some recurring tasks may be selected for marking by semi-random sample, to simulate students being randomly called to perform a task in class. For instance, only a handful of students’ translations will actually be marked per week, the others just receive the general feedback based on these. Each time a student is selected for a task, that decreases the chance to be selected for that task in future (down to a minimum of 5 % to discourage complacency), so that over the course of the semester, every student will be selected about the same number of times per such task.

There is a strict zero tolerance policy on cheating, plagiarism, and ghost-writing, including using machine translation.
Otherwise, active participation and cooperation between students is very much encouraged, and participation in the forums, especially the pre- and post-lesson q&a sessions and discussions, deemed an important element of the course.

A significant DIFFERENCE FROM THE 1st SEMESTER is that Grammar II traditionally has a proper, heavily weighted, final test. However, that only makes sense in conventional on-site form. If it’s practical to hold on-site tests in July, the lecturer reserves the right to do so [plan B]; otherwise the last test will be a regular “mini” one, like last semester [plan A].

Extra credit (1 ECTS) is available on request for students whose programme of studies requires it.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

* All students who submit a task for marking receive a grade, except if they de-register before the appropriate deadline.
* Students who fail to submit three tasks in a row, or who do not access Moodle for more than 14 consecutive days will be barred from further participation (but still graded, if applicable), unless they have a good reason (at the sole discretion of the lecturer). This is meant to be an online version of the mandatory attendance rule.
* The final score comprises:
- written translations—about 1/week; semi-random sample, at least 3 times/semester; worst result discarded, rest averaged;
- other short submissions, e.g. questions on lessons, kanji & vocabulary tests, and so on —up to 2/week; full / semi-random sample;
- active participation—primarily contributions to the forum, asking and answering questions;
- final test;
weighted, in order, either A: 55/25/20/– [no final test]; or B: ~35/~16/~13/36 [with final test].
Finally, up to 5 percentage points may be awarded / docked at the sole discretion of the lecturer.
* For a passing grade, each of these 3 [A] or 4 [B] components must be > 36, and the total must be > 60; if so, the grade is determined as follows: >60 → 4/D, >70 → 3/C, >80 → 2/B, >90 → 1/A.

Examination topics

Students must expect to be tested on everything previously covered in class and/or on the e-learning platform (Moodle), including content from the first semester, at any time, including, but not limited to, the presentations/slides, textbook, vocabulary & kanji lists, as well as grammar sheets and forum discussions.

Reading list

Textbook: Bunka shokyū nihongo I. Tekisuto. Kaiteiban.
Available at Facultas bookshop in "Hof 1" on Campus. Most likely (part of) the second volume will also be required, but there is no need to buy it in advance.
Additional material will be distributed in class or via the e-learning platform (Moodle).

Association in the course directory

JMA M1 for Ecos-students
EC Wirtschaftskommunikation Japanisch II

Last modified: Tu 02.03.2021 05:12