Katakana Literary Work Nomination!

In the katakana project, we examined how Katakana is used in the actual context and compared those actual usages with the Katakana descriptions in various textbooks. We hope that you have had interesting insights through this project. As some of you already mentioned in your analysis, textbooks are never able to exhaust all rules. Textbook authors always need to select and organize particular constructions of reality from the vast universe of knowledge.

There are many notions that we tend to consider as self-evident. For example, we may think that Katakana is used only for loan words, textbooks present correct, neutral, and essential information and knowledge, or Japanese people speak Japanese language. But do these “self-evident” notions truly reflect the realities? We believe that questioning or reflecting your understanding of these “self-evident” notions is the first step to make yourself involved into the community. We should not just wait for the community to take the initiative to change but change the community by ourselves. Hence the katakana project was an attempt to put this concept into practice.

As educators we feel that it is extremely important for us to help a person grow, because we will be sharing the world together, and will all be responsible for the future community. Let’s make a better world together!


先週の木曜日に、クラスメートのせんりゅうやマンガを評価（ひょうか:evaluation）しましたね。その中で、とてもいい作品（さくひん:piece of work）を紹介します（しょうかいします:to introduce）。

セクション１
１．いきましょう！（マンガ）
２．ハワドの日本語のブログ （はいく）
３．Turning Japanese（ものがたり：Story)

セクション２
１．もしもしみちえです（はいく）
２．にほんご４n００bs（まんが）
２．日本語　OK !（まんが）