Reflective Essay

It is at last time to write this reflection. Every course I have taken in MAFLT has allowed me to create something special for my students at the Kansas City Art Institute, a four-year college of art, design, and media. While I know we all have wonderful students and many of our challenges are similar, let me share with you what make my students unique and why I felt this EM must be created with them in mind. Please note that throughout this essay I use the pronouns “they” and “their” as both plural and gender-neutral singular, which is the standard practice on my campus.

MY SCHOOL & STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS

An independent art college is one that stands alone. Its mission is to mold artists who will change how you the viewer will experience the world. It is not connected to another university, and it is not a for-profit organization. The Kansas City Art Institute is a 136-year-old independent art college located in Missouri. It is where Walt Disney first began studying art and down the street in a dilapidated garage is the studio where he first sketched of what would become the iconic mouse. Other well-known artists past and present also call KCAI their home. During the 2020-2021 academic year in quarantine, 10 independent art colleges in the USA were either closed permanently or absorbed by large universities; but KCAI grew. It is a place where the start of something larger begins.

Like typical liberal arts campuses, students earn their bachelor’s degree by taking a variety of courses in literature, history, philosophy, music, religion, math, and science in addition to coursework for their major. The majors here are illustration, animation, ceramics, sculpture, print making, fiber arts, film making, photography, painting, graphic design, product design, game design, creative writing, and art history. Everything is about creating what the world has yet to see. KCAI offers minors in social practice and entrepreneurship, and a certificate in Asian Studies which will soon be a minor. While most students may be able to successfully graduate from a mainstream college program, some would not.

My typical student is a visual learner that masters their subject through hands-on project-based learning. Many have been diagnosed at some point in their school career with a learning challenge such as dyslexia, severe anxiety, or depression, all of which can make typical language classes a challenge. Many of my students are struggling with their sexuality or gender identity, and they are experimenting with body modification or fashion choices. I’m keenly aware of the emotional state of my students when they are in my class. I want my classroom to be a safe place for them to explore who they are in the language they want to learn.

Because of the intensity of the “Year of the Foundation” (freshman year), my students are only upperclassmen between 20 -35 years old. Often, they are in their senior year having taken all the required classes to graduate first. This means they usually have tried to learn Japanese through self-study methods and are devoted to Japanese pop culture and art. Due to the high cost of a single course ($4600), it is rare to have students from other college campuses in my classroom, so the concentration of artists as language students is nearly 100%. My personal belief is that amongst the participants in the MAFLT program, few have a student demographic like mine.

INITIAL QUESTIONS

The 2018 Japanese Education Survey by the Japan Foundation published in 2021, identified me as the only Japanese language instructor at an independent art college. As far as my school knows, it is the only independent art college offering foreign language classes. Since 2008 KCAI has offered Japanese Language & Culture as part of its Asian Studies Certificate Program. Approximately 200 students have started or continued their Japanese language studies with me while pursuing their BFA degree. Amongst the individual expressions of personal choices and interests, the influence of Japanese pop art can be seen in student creative work, much to the chagrin of some art instructors. My fourteen years teaching these artistically gifted students has shown me that the way they learn best is through project-based learning. This method combined with the development of program ecology amongst all levels and alumni, and my tenacious effort at program vitality has helped to ensure students are enrolling in the courses, but what happens after graduation when they can no longer take my classes?

According to the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, as a category IV language, it may take up to thirteen years to master the Japanese language. At KCAI to earn the Asian Studies Program Certificate, students must take one Japanese Language & Culture course. To earn membership in the national foreign language honorary society Alpha Mu Gamma they must take two courses of the same language. Although my students and I wish they could continue their studies further together, the fact is that very few are able to take a third or fourth level course. How then do I help to ensure my students will become lifelong language learners even if they do not study with me?

THE EXPERIENTIAL MODULE

For my EM I set about to find a way to motivate my students to continue studying to reach a higher level of proficiency, and that they can do it while achieving their career goal of being a professional artist.

When I first thought about what to do for my EM several semesters ago, I envisioned improving the language portfolio I created in the Assessment course. It is like an artist’s portfolio that my students are familiar with. However, I learned that these are a bit different. An artist wants to put their best work in their portfolio to showcase their current talent and skills, whereas the language portfolio is designed to show progress made so it consists of both earlier simpler work and current more complex work. While it was a challenge to ease my students into showing development, I was very honored when the MAFLT Assessment professors for the past two years shared my portfolio projects as examples of how to use it for cumulative assessments. That would have been a simpler EM to pursue.

On the final day of the Program Management course when we shared our projects with each other via zoom, a classmate spoke about using the “Possible Selves Program” to encourage students to look at what they want to do in the future. Students create collages and sketch a tree to identify their strengths, interests and fears they may not be aware of. Rather than seeing this as an exercise in motivation, I blindly only saw the art production that was involved. Hastily I researched a lesson plan on “Possible Selves” and set about matching Japanese fukumono talismans and thought processes to the different kinds of mental activities involved in the Possible Selves Program, then assigned it to my students that semester. It took about two hours to throw together, and the students made some wonderful art. I briefly mentioned this project during the initial meeting with Dr. Lanier and Dr. Sommar-Farias while pitching the portfolio EM idea. There was no backing out of it. The portfolio pitch was dead, and the Possible Selves was in. What I thought the Possible Selves Program was is nothing like what I discovered… it is more.

I split my EM over the course of two semesters because of family health matters. I gathered books and collected journal articles. The more I read and researched though, the more overwhelmed I felt. The process felt out of hand, and I did not see how I was going to add a language component to the program as well. Articles that I skimmed through suggested using the L2 to explore student strengths and goals. Those students were significantly more proficient than mine. I felt that this would not work. One important aspect of this motivational program though is that the students must identify their fears, feel their fears, and make plans to move in the opposite direction from those fears. I was caught up in my fears so I could not finish my literature review that semester. There were too many directions, too much information and too many feelings for me to sort through. I felt like a complete MAFLT failure. I became depressed both because of my mother’s health issues and my own feelings of failing my students and this program. All I could do on the long car rides to visit my mother was think about how stuck I was in my own possible selves work… and then as the fall semester began, I started to apply the motivational techniques to my own life. It was powerful in the way that the “dark night of the soul” makes you cry and question your choices, but on the other side of that darkness is light you did not expect. That is what happened to me.

At the summer faculty development day, I announced that KCAI had been granted a charted in the Alpha Mu Gamma Foreign Language Honorary Society and associate membership was open to faculty who were interested in languages, international activities, and language users. Following the meeting several faculty members approached me about how instrumental their study abroad or work abroad experiences have been in shaping their artistic view of the world. I came to realize my EM could be designed to help my students focus on their careers after graduation as well as help them develop skills they will need to continue studying the language without me. As semester 2 of my EM began, I identified the seven units of my project, the cultural items to be explored, the language components, and post-graduation motivation points. It was not a simple set of worksheets that I tossed together 9 months prior. My EM is a 150+ page supplemental textbook specifically for my adult learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language, and a website of templates for other instructors to use with their language and students.

POSSIBLE SELVES

What exactly is the Possible Selves Program? Essentially it is a motivational program with seven lessons or units. I designed mine to cover two weeks per unit, but you can design it to be a few minutes once a week depending upon your student demographics. Students develop a language vision of themselves using the language proficiently and explore the feelings they imagine having in the future. Due to the low proficiency level of my students, the visualization and exploration of self are conducted in English rather than Japanese. Each teacher will need to make this language choice based on their student abilities.

When is the best time to conduct the Possible Selves Program? I will be conducting my program during the spring semester in my second level course. This will allow me to give those who are graduating some techniques for self-study, and hopefully encourage underclassmen to sign up for level three in the fall. Because I am an adjunct, I must ensure that I have enough students enrolled in upper-level courses or I will not receive a contract for them which will adversely affect my finances. Perhaps this possible selves program is also a bit self-serving.

THREE SECTIONS OF EACH UNIT

What is the composition of each lesson/unit? Each unit is composed of three basic sections:

Explore – This section focused on cultural topics and artifacts related to positive thinking in Japanese culture. I used a multi-literacy approach to explore authentic documents, mostly music lyrics, about the cultural artifact. This formed the language component of the lesson.

Create – Guided imagery and further exploration of the artifact help students develop their possible selves vision. Students create of their own version of the cultural artifact based on the results of their exploration in English.

Reflect – Students look back at their creative work and reflect on how it came to be, their feelings, and thoughts about how this integrates with who they are. Through ethnographic writing they can compare the cultural artifact they created with how their own vision of who they are and what they will become has changed.

THE SEVEN UNITS

What are the seven units? The seven units focus on a different step towards developing the student’s language vision and motivating them towards being a better person, higher language proficiency and career goals. These seven units guide the students through a visualization process where they can feel the experience of being a proficient language user and a being a professional artist. They also provide the students with skills and tactics they will need to pursue Japanese on their own when they are no longer in a regular Japanese language class. Other instructors can use this for their language, being a good person, and other goal such as graduating or becoming XYZ.

Unit 1 – Questioning: what are my goals and what do I think I want to do with my life? Students create a dreamcatcher. The goal is to encourage students to begin thinking about their dreams of the future.

Unit 2 – Discovering Strength and Interests: What am I good at and what am I interested in? After writing a list of strengths and interests, students create a collage to visually represent these concepts.

Unit 3 – Thinking about Hopes, Expectations and Fears: “Who am I?” In English they complete an open-ended questionnaire or interview with the teacher that identifies words and phrases related to their hopes, expectations, and fears.

Unit 4 – Sketching Me and My Possible Selves: “What am I like and what are my possible selves?” Students analyze their results from the questionnaire. Instructors can also gather qualitative research data for a deeper insight into the general make up of their students which can benefit future courses. Next, the students draw a “Possible Selves Tree.” Each part of the tree is labeled with the exact words the student previously identified in unit 3. The roots are words the student has used to describe themselves. The limbs represent the student in the three areas (foreign language user, worker, person); the branches represent hoped-for and expected possible selves in those areas; Fears are represented as things that can damage the tree such as lightning, termites, poison in the soil represent the student’s feared possible selves. After creating and labeling their tree, students reflect on ways they can nourish and protect their tree. Students may notice parts of their tree are out of balance when compared to other sections. This is a good visual for the student to see what they may need to work on.

Unit 5 – Reflecting on Goals: “What can I be?” Students evaluate their trees by reflecting on what they drew and labeled. Students will be able to notice what was most important to who they are and define specific goals in each of the areas of their lives as identified in Unit 3.

Unit 6 – Growing your Action Plan: “How do I get there?” Students develop their action plan to make their goals reachable. Their action plans should specifically relate to being a foreign language user, a worker, and a person.

Unit 7 – Performing: “How am I doing?” Students roleplay themselves as 10 years in the future giving advice and encouragement to their younger, current, selves. At this final stage students can create another collage/vision board, this time about their future as actualized based on their hopes, expectations, and goals.

As I explored different cultural artifacts and authentic documents to use with these units, I was profoundly affected by the activities. At times my work slowed because I had a lot of processing to do myself. Each time I started on Units 4, 6 and 7 I knew I would need at least an hour to work through emotions and often having a good cry before I could continue ~ not because I felt I it was too difficult to write, but because I had my own personal challenges to work through. I do not expect my students to feel this way as they may not spend as much time on these lessons as I did creating them, but I do feel that they will be affected.

As mentioned in unit 4, the student writing of each of these can be an excellent source of qualitative data if the instructor is conducting classroom research. I will be adding this to my professional activities because I want to know what direction my students are heading in and how I might be able to prepare future students. Having taught in the same program for 14 years I have seen how my students and their professional goals have changed over time. With this knowledge I will be able to guide them better than I am now.

CONCLUSION

When I began MAFLT I had hoped that I would be able to contribute to the field of foreign language teaching in some way because of the unique student demographic I work with. That is still my goal. I think I have always known that student motivation was an issue I wanted to be involved with. In the first semester of Japanese, I see some who are very confident and some who may be on the fringe of social groups and leaning towards being a bit awkward. I have also seen firsthand these same students grow in their self-love as I encouraged them throughout the year. There is something about less commonly taught languages, or at least Japanese, that attracts these students who need a bit more support. When my students feel safe and encouraged in my classroom they progress further towards proficiency. It is my sincere hope that this Possible Selves program will benefit my students and those of other languages.