Understanding Unconscious Bias: “Indian Camp” in the Japanese Context

Presentation ID: 111

Presentation Title: Understanding Unconscious Bias: “Indian Camp” in the Japanese Context

Format: Poster Session (90 mins)

    Learning/Teaching Context: College & University Education

    Content Area: Language Classroom Content

Presenter(s): NG, LAY SION - University of Tsukuba

Date: Nov 12

Day: Saturday

Time: 12:45-14:15

Room: Online Room #2

Short Summary: 

This poster session outlines the presenter’s experience of applying Ernest Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” in Japanese university EFL classrooms, demonstrating how “Indian Camp” can be utilized to improve learners’ creativity and cross-cultural understanding. Through the lessons, learners come to realize their unconscious bias toward foreigners. Applying “Indian Camp” in the EFL classroom is thus beneficial in the sense that students’ understanding of “self” and “other” can be developed at a more dynamic and profound level.

Abstract: 

Ernest Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” (1924) is an easy-to-understand short story that implies the clash of cultures between the white and the native Americans in the early twentieth century. For learners of English, especially university freshmen in Japan, who are still in search of their individual identities as students and readers, Ernest Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” can be a model for them to explore their own culture, values, and unconscious biases in terms of race and gender. This poster session outlines the presenter’s experience of using “Indian Camp” as a text in two reading classes that consisted of 80 first-year undergraduate students, demonstrating how “Indian Camp” can be utilized to guide students in becoming critical, creative, and independent thinkers/writers. The poster is divided into several sections. This includes the teaching content, methods used inside and outside the classroom (close-reading, creative writing practice, criticism reading, reflection writing practice), findings and discussion based on each method, and a conclusion. Based on answers in the learning outcome sheets, the presenter discovered that after participating in the lessons, some Japanese learners realize they possess an unconscious bias toward foreigners. Applying “Indian Camp” in the EFL classroom is therefore beneficial in the sense that students’ understanding of “self” and “other” can be developed at a more dynamic and profound level.

This article was published in September 2023 in Teaching American Literature: https://www.cpcc.edu/sites/default/files/2023-09/teaching-american-literature-spring-2023-v2.pdf

To cite the article:

Ng, Lay Sion. “Teaching ‘Indian Camp’ in the Japanese Classroom.” Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice, vol. 13, no. 2, 2023, pp. 65-75.