UPDATED PDS

The production design specification has been updated regarding to progress of my project I also simplified some of the metrics corresponding to the project needs.

RENDERED KANJIS

The first 6 rendered kanji have applied the same illustration method from week 5 and belong to a pastel colour palette, references to one of the PDS needs that they need to have a consistent visual aesthetic.

INTERVIEWS

Two of my Japanese teachers, Ota sensei and Nakamura sensei were separately interviewed on Zoom to gain feedback on my developed kanjis and initial thoughts on my primary deliverable. Ran in both Japanese and English, two of the interviewees teach at Monash University including English-speaking students.

GUIDING QUESTIONS (sent prior to the interviews)

• Do you think just focusing on the shape and the meanings of these illustrations could better motivate Japanese learning students who have an English-speaking background, instead of forming stories as a way for the learners to memorise kanjis? 

• How can I improve my current animated kanjis, For example for the illustration for 曲 even the still image can already represent its meaning of, bending certain objects, but when it comes to the animated gifs, the animation looks like pressuring on something instead of bending. So, is there a better suggestion of how I can improve on that?

• As you know a single kanji character can have multiple meanings and those meanings can be totally different, such as for 楽 stands for ease/music/fun at the same time. For the kanjis that are being visualised into objects that have represented their meanings, do you think people may misunderstand and get confused if there is only one meaning brought into a kanji illustration that the character originally has multiple meanings (since I have only brought in the musical elements in 楽)?

• Do you think any confusion might still be caused by the illustrations, as the illustrations are not illustrated in the way the kanjis are actually written? (even though they are provided as a basic understanding and motivation to learn before the learners get familiar with those kanji), e.g. the rounded shape of 円?

• Do you have any other feedback about my illustrations or my project?

NAKAMURA SENSEI

Since the interviews were carried out on separate days, during the first interview with Nakamura sensei, the session was run by simply presenting the drawings with the guiding questions without presenting any initial ideas about the deliverables. Just showing the illustrations has led to the question of how those illustrated kanji could motivate learners through action, responding to the project research question (instead of simply looking at the visualised form of kanji). This has helped me develop a primary deliverable and multiple secondary deliverables for gaining feedback on the next interview with Ota sensei. 

Feedback and insights gained:

• Animated kanjis work really well, especially for the concepts that are hard to visualise in a still image form

• Introduce kanji characters in a longer phrase or vocabulary through illustration, for example, 楽 (ease/music/fun) can be drawn as in 楽しい音 (happy music/sounds) or 音楽 (music) that have similar meanings. This could further strengthen memory in learners

• However, this does not apply to all cases since a single character can have completely different meanings when used in multiple vocabularies such as 部 (portion) can used as 部活, club activities or 部署, duty station. Therefore the more complex the kanji the harder to visualise

• The visualised forms of the kanji that differ from the original character in terms of stroke might not lead to confusion, but learners might not understand the kanji meaning by looking at the illustration. So this may lead to when learners try to remember a particular character it is better for them not to use my illustrations

• It has been mentioned the limitation of using my illustrations to learn kanji is learners must reach a certain level by memorising kanji characters in longer phrases and vocabulary, which suggests I am on the right track since it has been indicated my project specifically towards intermediate learners

HOW TO USE THE FLASHCARDS

(ideas taken from the sketch and brought to the interview)

1. You are given a number of prompts which is a Japanese phrase with its English translation, where there is a blank space in each of the prompts

2. Read the sentence and use the illustrated kanjis has a hint by looking at their illustrative elements to help yourself fill in the prompts, by matching the corresponding sentence with the kanji that lets the sentence make sense

3. Then you will learn the kanji as you can also learn how it could be used in an appropriate context. When you get to memorise the kanji with the whole phrase this will be better supported for memorising over a single kanji so learners will get motivated

Prompts developed to be learnt with the illustrations:

• くもから(雨)がふる, (Rain) comes down from clouds

• 車が(止)まった, The car has (stopped)

• (水)を飲む, Drink (water)

• よるになったら(月)が出る, The (moon) will come out once it’s night

• (楽)しいおと, (happy) sounds/music

• 青い(空)を見る, Look at the blue (sky)

• ケーキを(半)分きる, Cut the cake in (half)

• 家を(建)っている, (constructing) a house