The Japanese pop culture has remarkably gained popularity among young people in the US. Although Japanese animation films are widely recognized as a symbol of Japanese pop culture, there are many other categories, such as J- pop, pop dramas, and videogames, which attract young people. It is reported that Japanese entertainment industries have constantly increased shares in the US market. Under these circumstances, it is important to find how to integrate Japanese pop culture into the language classroom in order to attract students, who are motivated to learn the Japanese language by the influence of Japanese pop culture.
The survey was designed to search the Japanese language learner's language contact and the motivation to learn Japanese. The survey was conducted with 124 college students at the University of California in 2003-2004. The questionnaire asked how often they speak, read, listen to Japanese outside of class, and what kind of media they read and listen to. All the participants had prior learning experience in Japanese and were willing to be placed one of intermediate or advanced Japanese classes at college. The results of the survey showed that the participants regularly read Japanese texts and listen to Japanese. Among the printed media, the participants most frequently read comics (N=65), followed by website (N=64) and e-mails (N=53). Although a number of students often mention that they decided to learn Japanese after watching Japanese animation films, the animation video was the fourth (N=53) among listening media categories, following TV drama (N=78), J-pop (N=76), and movie (N=67). With the results of the survey and suggestions from former students, the curriculum that integrated comics, TV dramas and movies were developed for intermediate and advanced Japanese language classrooms.
In the presentation, I will introduce sample curriculum and copyright free materials created by animators in Hollywood.