Oka Tadoku Room

The Japanese language learning practice of tadoku, and the legacy of Mayumi Oka at Michigan

by Jenny Blass

If not for the Japanese department at Michigan, I probably never would have discovered the Oka Tadoku Room. The day after one of my Japanese exams, in order to give my class a break. For a change of pace, instead of our usual lecture, my professor decided to schedule a class period in the Oka Tadoku Room so we could take a stab at reading actual Japanese literature. After dubiously following the directions that were sent out to the class, I found myself on the fourth floor of Hatcher Library, in a modern feeling room with Asian design influences, adjacent to the Asia Library. As our lesson for the day, our professor had us pick out and try to read a book in Japanese that we felt was at a comfortable level, without consulting a Japanese dictionary. It was here I was introduced to the Japanese language learning practice of tadoku, and the legacy of Mayumi Oka at Michigan.

Mayumi Oka. Photo courtesy ii.umich.edu

The origin of the “Oka” part of the Oka Tadoku room’s title, Mayumi Oka has left a substantial legacy at Michigan. As the previous head of the Japanese Language Program (JLP), Oka left a flourishing department that she considers to be one of the best in the country. However, this hasn’t always been the case. After joining the Michigan Japanese department in 2000, and becoming its director in 2004, Oka helped her colleagues weather JLP’s lowest point in 2011, when Japanese classes at Michigan experienced a decline in enrollment that she attributes to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake. Faced with a proposal from the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures that some JLP lecturers be shifted from full-time to part-time status, Oka instead elected to take an unpaid break to protect her colleagues’ income (Short).

However, Oka knew that working alone wouldn’t be enough, so she collaborated with the department to try and figure out what appealed to people about Japanese so she could return enrollment to its previous levels. One of the things Oka and her team thought might be weakening the program was the lack of a comprehensive and compelling textbook for advanced Japanese students. Unable to find a book that fit their needs, the department wrote their own instead. Now, the Tobira series, which was initially created with only the University of Michigan Japanese program in mind, is being used to teach Japanese around the world (Short).

The Oka Tadoku Room, April 5, 2023, by Jenny Blass

Along with co-authoring Tobira, Oka published nine Japanese books, and ran a Japanese pedagogy course over the summer for Michigan undergraduates, graduates, Japanese instructors, and Ph.D. candidates who were interested in language instruction (Short). Oka and her husband have also donated generously to strengthen Japanese studies at Michigan, including establishing a scholarship that funds study abroad activities for outstanding Japanese students (Loszewski).

The Oka Tadoku Room is a direct result of Oka’s largesse, as she approached the library shortly before the pandemic with the suggestion that they create a room dedicated to tadoku (多読), which literally means “wide reading” (Short). Tadoku is a language learning method popular in Japan, where students read a diverse selection in their target language at a level where they don’t struggle to understand the material. Ideally, by doing this, students mimic native language learners as they take their first steps as readers. Tadoku has recently received a lot of attention because of its adoption by private educators at juku (Japanese cram schools), but has been utilized by Japanese universities for decades (Kittaka).

Assorted books and magazines in the Oka Tadoka Room, April 5, 2023, by Jenny Blass

Although tadoku was the primary purpose of the room, Oka intended it to have other uses as well. Along with giving students of East Asian languages, including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean the opportunity to practice reading in their target language, Oka wanted to create an inclusive environment that was open to the public, allowing anyone of any background to enjoy the space. Moreover, she wanted to increase awareness of the Asian Library at Michigan, which houses one of the top collections of East Asian materials in the US, but is relatively unknown to anyone not in the field. As an extension of this, Oka wanted to provide a place where the greater community could interact with the Asian Library, from lower school students to other universities that lack Japanese reading material. In Oka’s own words, “By offering activities based in diversity and inclusion that are open to both campus and community and by focusing not only on Japanese language learning but also on other East Asian languages, I hope that the Oka Tadoku Room will be of use to a large, diverse population” (Oka 2-4).

Works Cited

Blass, Jenny. The Oka Tadoku Room. 5 Apr. 2023. Author's personal collection.

Blass, Jenny. Assorted books and magazines in the Oka Tadoku Room. 5 Apr. 2023. Author's personal collection.

Kittaka, Louise George. “Read up on Ways That Can Help Us Learn English.” The Japan Times,

The Japan Times, 7 Apr. 2014, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/04/06/issues/read-up-on-ways-that-can-help-us-learn-english/.

Loszewski, Kristen. “Masao and Mayumi Oka Scholarship for Japanese Language Studies

Awarded to First Undergraduate Recipients.” University of Michigan, University of Michigan, 12 May 2022, https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/support-lsa/stories-of-impact/student-impact/masao-and-mayumi-oka-scholarship-for-japanese-language-studies-a.html.

Mayumi Oka. University of Michigan, University of Michigan,

https://ii.umich.edu/ii/people/all/m/mayoka.html. Accessed 9 Apr. 2023.

Oka, Mayumi. The Establishment of the Oka Tadoku Room, University of Michigan Library,

Ann Arbor, MI.

Short, Brian. “A Champion for Japanese Language.” University

of Michigan, University of Michigan, 27 Aug. 2018,

https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/news-events/all-news/search-news/a-champion-for-japanese-language.html.

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