Nurturing Interaction between Pre- and Post-Year Abroad Students

Fumiko Narumi-Munro
Japanese Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh

Mihoko Pooley
Japanese Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh

ABSTRACT
This paper describes and evaluates a novel approach to peer support within the context of a compulsory year abroad for students of Japanese Studies. The project discussed in this paper had the aim of fostering a sense of peer support between pre-year abroad students preparing to go on exchange programmes at host institutions in Japan and students returning from Japan. This project was based on the concept of ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ (senior-junior in Japanese), an aspect of Japanese culture regarding the relationship between people at different levels of seniority or authority. This project was carried out in various phases with improvements being made based on learner feedback after each phase. It was found that students yet to embark on their year abroad faced the most difficulties with regard to the difference in language competency between themselves and the students returning from their year abroad in Japan. Taking into account learner feedback and combining peer support with assessment allowed teaching staff to create a novel form of learning that was found to benefit both intermediate and advanced learners of Japanese. In the most recent iteration of the project, returning students teach Japanese to pre-year abroad students using the Direct Method, teaching using only the target language, so that returning students are able to gain awareness of the importance of levelling down their language to the target audience. This paper discusses the planning, implementation, and benefits of this project in relation to the linguistic and cultural development of learners’ competencies with regard to pedagogy, employability, and interpersonal skills.

KEYWORDS: Japanese language, year abroad, peer support, employability, pre-year abroad resources

INTRODUCTION
Importance of preparation for the year abroad
The year abroad is a crucial part of language degree programmes for the development of language competency, general academic ability, and enhancing intercultural awareness (Freed, B.F., 1995; Regan, Howard & Lemée, 2009; Kinginger, 2013; The Quality Assurance Agency, 2019), and for many students it can be the highlight of their degree programme. The experience also aids in the participants’ personal development (Coleman, 1997). However, the year abroad also has various issues, such as difficulty adapting to intense use of the target language and culture shock, which can cause social isolation, leading to a negative attitude towards the culture and society of the target language. This in turn can cause limited or unexpected progress in the target language (Freed, 1995; Iwasaki, 2010; Maultsby & Stutts, 2019). To address these year-abroad issues, what kind of support should be offered and when?

As Coleman stated, ‘preparation is all important’ (1997, p.15) for the year abroad. Pre-year abroad preparation is an essential form of support that can ease pre-year abroad nervousness and minimize foreseeable challenges and problems that may be experienced by students on their year abroad. One valuable resource for pre-year abroad preparation is year abroad returnees. These returnees know what the year abroad is like through their own experience. As role models (Ryder, et al, 2017), the returning students can give advice based on their own experience, and the pre-year abroad students can easily relate themselves to the returnees. Peer support / tutoring has a long history with various forms such as peer assessment (C MacAlpine, 1999), learning community (Tosey, 1999; Skalicky & Brown, 2009), learning skill support (Adam, Skalicky & Brown, 2011), PAL (Peer Assisted Learning) (Edwards & Bone, 2012; Keenan, 2014) and non-academic support (Spielman, Hughes and Rhind, 2015). It is seen as particularly effective in cross-year small group tutoring (Toppings, 1996; Ramsden, 2004; Biggs & Tang 2011; Colver & Fry, 2016; Rees, et al, 2016). Pre-year abroad students tend to want to speak with year abroad returnees in order to get as much information and advice as possible. However, returning students' input has a big influence on the pre-year abroad students’ choice of host institution and geographic location, or perception of the year abroad in general, in both positive and negative ways. Their information can sometimes be biased- based on their own personalities and their experiences, both positive and negative, which may not be the same for their juniors. In order to alleviate these biases, a screening and monitoring process, carried out by the teaching staff, was needed in order to ensure that returning students did not unduly influence pre-year abroad students, particularly negatively. In order to offer a space for returning students to give information and support to pre-year abroad students, the teaching staff involved in this project devised two credit-bearing courses, one for each level of student, which took place in the same classroom as a joint class. The returning students were required to give a formal presentation on their year abroad experience to the pre-year abroad students.

Importance of post-year abroad stage
We have regularly found that our pre-year abroad students say the joint class sessions are very useful for getting information on the year abroad before they go and we have also observed that these sessions help the pre-year abroad students to gain a clearer picture of year abroad life. But do the returning students gain anything from this practice?

There has been a great focus on pre-departure preparation, and some pastoral support for the in-country stage, but little focus on the post-year abroad stage in our subject area. The year abroad experience is not only during the period in the country. It has already started from the pre-departure guided preparation, and the learning process ‘preferably continues with a reflective and interpretive project drawing on SA [Study Abroad] experience' (Isabelli-García et al, 2018, p.466). This reflection can take place in post-year abroad debriefing and courses (Jackson, 2013), which revisit their language and intercultural learning strategies to form their metacognitive strategies (Coleman, 1997).

As an informative output from the returning students' information and advice through their experience works as a reflective and interpretive project, this joint class practice can be an essential part of their learning process of the year abroad. They can see themselves two years ago in these junior students, and this helps them realise how much their language and cultural awareness have improved since their pre-year abroad stage. To make it more obviously related to the returning students' year abroad language learning, they would have to give such presentations in Japanese as a part of the fourth-year language course assessment. By attaching this practice as a part of the fourth-year language assessment, all the returning students will participate so that the pre-year abroad students can have the maximum opportunities not just to meet the returnees but also learn from a wider range of experiences.

Experiencing Japanese culture and society through ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ system
The joint class also provides a real sense of ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ (Japanese: Senior-junior) relationship experience, which is observed widely in Japan, from educational institutions such as schools (Cave, 2004) and universities (Arai, 2004), to workplaces in offices (Bright, 2005). Seniors have a responsibility to look after their juniors, and juniors show respect to their seniors. This hierarchical relationship is very strict and regarded as important in Japanese society (Nakane, 1970; Benedict, 1989; Qie, et al, 2019), and according to a Japanese recruitment information service company, foreign workers in Japan found that this is one of the most different areas between Japan and their home countries (My Navi News Release, 2019). Without this knowledge, students will find it hard to adapt themselves to Japanese culture and society while on the year abroad, and the same applies to those who will work in Japan or Japan-related fields after graduation. Based on the experiential learning model (Kolb, 1984; Kolb, A & Kolb, D, 2005), the joint class and year abroad offer three learning cycles of ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ system in the pre-year abroad, year abroad and post-year abroad stages. Students experience a miniature version of Japanese society in class - senior students provide support to juniors, and junior students show respect to seniors, followed by their reflection on the experience and learning the concept of ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ culture. First, the pre-year abroad students experience the ‘kōhai’ (junior) stage in class. By the time the pre-year abroad students go on the year abroad, they will be able to adapt their knowledge to the real situations in Japan, thus they are better prepared. The year abroad, which naturally offers a full experience for their language and cultural experiential learning (Moreno‐López, et al., 2017), is also the second cycle of learning ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ culture. Finally, the returning students, who were ‘kōhai’ (junior) two years ago, act as ‘senpai’ (senior) with responsibility this time. It gives them a better understanding of ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ culture since they completed all three cycles of the ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ experience before they graduate, and they will be able to adapt themselves to Japanese working culture more easily.

BACKGROUND AND THE ORIGINAL FORMAT
Group presentation on Japanese culture and societal topics in Japanese
In Edinburgh, the joint class project started in 2007, with returning students' group presentations in the L2 target language on L2 culture and society for the pre-year abroad students as assessment, followed by Q&A and discussions in English in small groups of both pre-year abroad and returning students. At the end of each session, all students wrote a short summary on what they learned and overall impressions on what they thought about the returning students’ presentations, and these were used for evaluation of this practice. The presentation was a part of the oral exams for the returning students, assessing their oral skills in Japanese in a group presentation format, so on top of the areas of their language abilities, presentation skills, contents and organization were also included in the marking scheme. The presentation topics were from the ‘Japanology’ field and included ‘Tate-shakai’ (vertical society), ‘Uchi to Soto’ (in-group and out-group), ‘Amae’ (dependency) as well as Japanese working culture and gender inequality issues, so this presentation activity also tested the returning students’ understanding of Japanese culture and society.

In comments from the students and our observation, joint class sessions were well received by not only the pre-year abroad students, but also the returning students in general as they enjoyed helping the junior students and reflecting on their own year abroad experience. One of the major problems with this practice was that most pre-year abroad students could not understand the returning students’ advanced language, especially with advanced level vocabulary for describing abstract concepts of Japanese culture and society. Although this could work as a mini-culture shock to ‘immunise’ the pre-year abroad students before they faced a real-life example of language-induced culture shock, one or two students always expressed their strong negative view on this practice as they just sat in class without understanding anything. Returning students also found it hard to lower the level of the language for the audience and that made them feel unchallenged, not realising that the ability to talk flexibly to meet the audience's needs is an advanced level skill (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2020). To address these issues, a foreign language teaching element was introduced to develop a learner-centred approach, to level-down the language for the pre-year abroad students.

REVISED FORMAT
Teaching the target language and culture in Direct Method as useful pre-year abroad resources
This new format started in the year 2017-18, with 22 returning students and 29 pre-year abroad students in the joint class. The number of the students in both the pre-year abroad and returning groups dropped in 2018-19 to 11 and 14, followed by a big increase in 2019-20 (27 pre-year abroad students and 22 returning students). The biggest change with the new style of joint class is the format of the product of fourth-year groups. They are now in charge of giving language lessons to the pre-year abroad students. They provide useful ‘information’ on the year abroad as well as ‘teach’ useful expressions and phrases in the L2 target language, in Direct Method (all teaching is done in the target language). This change required a modification of the existing marking scheme for the previous group presentation. Their oral skills in Japanese are assessed as before, but now particularly in the areas of description (explanation of grammar, vocabulary, culture, etc.); giving instructions (for tasks such as games, roleplays, listening etc.); and interaction (communicating with the pre-year abroad students using the appropriate level of the language) - they were reminded that using ‘difficult’ or ‘high-level’ Japanese words and expressions can have a negative impact on their performance. The most important thing is how they can communicate with the pre-year abroad students and adjust their level of the language for them.

Returning students are divided into groups (3-6 students each), and in these groups, they teach the pre-year abroad students Japanese language and culture, particularly things that are useful to know for living in Japan as year abroad preparation. Each week has a different theme such as shopping, hospital, part-time job etc., and each group is in charge of teaching a 45-minute class in one of 4 weeks of the joint class. When the pre-year abroad students are a large cohort, they will be divided into ‘tutorial’ groups, and in that case, a returning student group will also be split into two subgroups so that each subgroup teaches one ‘tutorial’ group for pre-year abroad students on the same topic. Each group can choose either to teach one 45 minute-class as a team, or for each of them to be in charge of one of the class activities for 10-15 minutes to make up a 40-45 minutes class, as long as they stick to the same theme, and don’t repeat the same type of activity in one class (see the table below). They also assist one of the other groups in another week, as the class assistants, as well as filming the class so that the videos can be shared among the second- and returning students as the year abroad preparation resources later (see Table 1).

In the first joint class, pre-year abroad and returning students brainstorm year abroad-related topics that the pre-year abroad students think will be useful, and the returning students found important, for the year abroad (see Figure 1). Then they pick up the most common topics among both pre-year abroad and returning students, one or two for each group. Over the three years since this practice started, the popular topics chosen for the joint class teaching are as follows: 1) how to look for a part-time job and job-related expressions; 2) banking; 3) how to make (local) friends / extracurricular activities at university; 4) medical and mental health; 5) Public transport (trains); 6) Mobile phone / SIM cards. However, there have been some topics that the returning students thought important to know but the pre-year abroad students didn’t realise are so important while on the year abroad (e.g. how to get a haircut at a hairdresser, Japanese speech politeness levels and how and when to use them).

Once the topic is chosen, each group begins their preparation. In the first year of this practice (2017-18), both pre-year abroad- and returning students had teaching Japanese as a foreign language classes so that the returning students could practise teaching the pre-year abroad students a few times and work out their language level. However, the returning students wanted separate practice sessions before they felt comfortable teaching the pre-year abroad students (see Evaluation for more details), so from the second year of the project (2018-19), a few specialised teaching Japanese as a foreign language workshops have been offered to the returning students, covering topics from how to level-down their language level to the audience level to how to write a teaching plan, all taught in Japanese.

As a part of the preparation for the group teaching, each student submits a draft teaching plan via the University’s Virtual Learning Environment. Feedback on the draft is given to them in the following week. Each group has three pre-teaching sessions (practice, rehearsal and preparation), and they receive feedback on site. In the preparation session, they also prepare class handouts for all the pre-year abroad students, teachers and teaching assistants.

One group (or subgroup if the student number is large) of two to three ‘teacher’ returning students delivers a class to 12-15 pre-year abroad students. There are also two to three ‘teaching assistant’ returning students, who take roles such as filming the teaching session or assisting the ‘teachers’ (handout distribution, roleplay practice, pair work etc.). The two examiners are also in class, marking the ‘teaching’ students’ spoken Japanese. Each teaching session is also followed by writing their comments on the class activities by all the participants, both pre-year abroad and returning students, and the comment sheet scores are also included in the returning students' oral exam assessment, though they comprise a very small amount of the overall assessment. The pre-year abroad students are assessed on a participation basis, by writing a short piece of feedback on the joint sessions.

EVALUATION
Students’ written comments and feedback in each joint class session and the course feedback (see Appendix for the mid-course feedback questions), as well as the observations of the examiners of the joint class teaching sessions from 2017-18 to 2018-19, were used for a qualitative evaluation of the new approach to the joint class.

Feedback from the pre-year abroad students
Pre-year abroad students appreciated the practicality of useful, relevant information and a hands-on approach, and valued the opportunity to meet the returning students and their approachability and helpfulness. They praised their seniors’ advanced language skills as well as their ‘fun’ and engaging teaching. Although the majority of pre-year abroad students found the returning students’ sessions engaging, there were a few comments from the pre-year abroad students that they still feel that the returning students spoke too fast, and that their vocabulary in their speaking and the contents of their teaching were too difficult. It seemed hard for the returning students to remember what they were like as pre-year abroad students. However, the examiners observed that the pre-year abroad students participated in the class activities more confidently, were more engaged and interacting with the returning students, which can prove that the new format of the joint class has contributed to lessening the difficulty of communication between the pre-year abroad and returning students caused by the language level gap, when compared to the previous one-way presentations.

Feedback from the returning students
In the middle of Semester 1 in 2017-18, 15 out of 22 of the returning students filled in the departmental mid-semester course feedback questionnaire with two questions in class (see Appendix). 4 out 15 students expressed the view that the new form of joint class is challenging but better than the previous presentation format as there is more interaction in the sessions and the practical topics are more relevant to the year abroad compared to the previous, more abstract ones about Japanese culture and society. It is very important to know that they see the new practice as better, as it is hard to judge whether there is any improvement from the previous presentation style to teaching style only from the pre-year abroad students’ feedback, considering that they have no experience of the previous practice.

However, as this change affected the format of the exam, they reacted to the change quite negatively. They felt the teaching the target language is not relevant to the oral language class and teaching skills shouldn’t be assessed, and they expressed the view that they were not interested in teaching at all and didn’t see why they had to do it, and that they get more nervous in front of the pre-year abroad students when they ‘teach’ them than when they ‘present’. After a conversation and discussion with them in class, with a detailed explanation of the reasons for the change, such as the Direct Method in language teaching being introduced to address the issue of language level gap, how levelling down the language to meet the audience needs is actually an advanced skill at the highest level (C2 in CEFR), as well as how the skills needed for ‘teaching’ and ‘presentation’ overlap so that they can gain transferable skills for their future career even if they have no plans to work in education after graduation, they started to see the benefit of the new practice. They also felt that there was not enough teaching practice and they said practising with the pre-year abroad students made them more nervous, so from the following year (2018-19), more teaching sessions for returning students only were added. In 2018-19, nine in Semester 1, and ten in Semester 2 out of eleven returning students answered the departmental mid-course questionnaire. Since the teaching sessions / exam were moved forward to Semester 2 to have time for more teaching practice workshops in Semester 1, they gave more positive feedback on the whole process and the joint class teaching module. They appreciated having teaching experience and mentioned it would be helpful for their future. None of them gave negative comments on it.

CONCLUSION
In the new format of the joint class as ‘teaching’ the L2 target language and culture in Direct Method to the pre-year abroad students as the year abroad preparation, the obvious improvement is that the sessions have become more interactive and hands-on, with their chosen topics from the students in both pre-year abroad and post year abroad stages, and the returning students’ sessions are valuable pre-year abroad preparatory resources for the pre-year abroad students. The returning students also enjoyed the interactive nature of teaching more than presentations, with a more learner-centred approach as they had chance to contribute to teaching topic choice. This new format also gives a clearer sense of peer support and/or peer-assisted learning with awareness of Japanese ‘Senpai-Kōhai’.

Another benefit is that providing an opportunity for the returning students to experience some foreign language teaching can enhance their ‘employability’, since language-teaching jobs, both in the target language and English, are one of the most common careers for language degree graduates. It also helps them to reflect on their year abroad experience, as well as their own metacognitive language and intercultural learning strategies on the year abroad and their language degree programme. Although the new format managed to lessen the issue of language level difference and helped the pre-year abroad students prepare for the year abroad better, there still are areas for improvement.

As a future plan, there should be a revision of the format and contents of teaching workshop for the returning students to tackle the issue of the language level difference and the returning students’ preparedness for the joint class teaching. Additionally, an introduction in the form of a preparatory session for the pre-year abroad students before they face a mini-culture shock given by their seniors and for introducing useful strategies on how to handle it might also help to ease the problem. It is also necessary to address returning students’ perception of this activity, by guiding them from a negative view on this practice as a time-consuming burden of looking after their juniors with no gains, to a more positive insight of the experience as an essential reflective post-year abroad stage as well as a real peer support / mentoring experience through the ‘Senpai-Kōhai’ system to enhance their future employability.

In terms of sustaining the resources for pre-year abroad preparation, materials and input from the current ‘in-country’ students can also contribute to them on top of those from the returnees. The in-country students can provide more ‘fresh, real-time’ information as they are in the middle of ‘in-country stage’. Although there have already been some ‘during the year abroad’ language tasks to provide the pre-year abroad preparation resources, more articulated tasks bridging the gap from pre-year abroad, to post- year abroad to make the students aware of the three stages of the year abroad cycle would be desirable in the future. By a careful planning of pre-, in- and post-year abroad tasks, it is easier for the students to reflect during all three stages, so that they can see their year abroad experience is continuous and that the post-year abroad stage is as important as the in-country stage. In this way, they can maximize their opportunity of the year abroad, and transform their experience into valuable resources for their degree programme and beyond graduation.

Although this practice works well for the students on the same language degree programmes, scalability may be an issue for non-language degree or optional year abroad students. However, we believe it is still possible to arrange practical year abroad workshops with less focus on the language by the returnees as their post-year abroad reflection on their experience and create a sense of peer support in a wider year abroad community.

Addresses for correspondence: F.Narumi-Munro@ed.ac.uk and Mihoko.Pooley@ed.ac.uk

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APPENDIX
Questions in the Mid-Course feedback form:
1. How is your learning on the course so far?
2. What do you think would help you learn better on the course?