Literature in the language classroom exposes learners to so much more than just creative uses of languages and fictional worlds. It encourages learners to think beyond the literary world, make links with individual environments, and express personal ideas. This presentation describes a Japanese as a Foreign Language course using Makoto Shinkai's animated fantasy film Your Name (Kimi no na wa), released in 2016, and published a month prior in light novel format, as a novelization of the same name. The animation movie and light novel became a huge success in Japan and abroad, grossing over more than 38 billion yen worldwide. This presentation discusses how literary creations in animated format can be incorporated in the foreign language classroom to help develop students' listening skills and boost language and cultural awareness of discourse features, by using an integrated approach, combining the language awareness approach proposed by Chan (1999) and cultural approach by Carter and Long (1991). As literature in language learning is more commonly experienced through (graded) readers and text formats, little space is left for learners to actively appreciate authentic materials of diverse formats. In this presentation, I propose that authentic content with identifiable characters in the form of anime can stimulate class discussion and creative output. Finally, insights from learners' written responses to the implemented approach will be shared to illustrate and evaluate the outcomes of the course.
Bibliography
Carter, R. and Long, M.N. (1991). Teaching Literature. Harlow, UK: Longman.
Chan, P.K.W. (1999). Literature, language awareness and EFL. Language Awareness, 8(1), 38-50.
List of highest-grossing anime films. (n.d.) Animanga Wiki. Retrieved June 11, 2022 from
https://animanga.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_anime_films
