Nihongo Daijobu!: Elementary Japanese through Practical Tasks

This task-centered textbook helps beginning learners master fundamental communication skills through a practical, step-by-step approach.

Every unit progressively builds up communication skills by taking learners through tasks that challenge them to practically apply their skills in diverse activities. In contrast with lessons that focus on rote memorization of sentence patterns, Nihongo Daijobu! introduces learners to essential constructions in a flexible, intuitive way, helping them to acquire the power to communicate in basic Japanese in a short time. This book responds to the needs of learners who have struggled with putting classroom Japanese to use in the real world.

Author InterviewWhat’s step-by-step enhancement of communication skills?

Nihongo Daijobu! coauthor Akiko Kajikawa (Sun Academy NIHONGO Center) tells us all about the features of this helpful Japanese language textbook.

What’s step-by-step enhancement of communication skills?

The biggest feature of Nihongo Daijobu! is that it uses a learning approach focused on enhancing communication skills step by step. In this approach, learners build up their Japanese proficiency by engaging in progressively more challenging tasks that involve communicating while actually performing some activity.

For example, let’s look at Unit 5, “I am going to Okinawa,” which focuses on travel-related communication. In Task 1, picture cards depicting places such as a supermarket, a school, and a hospital are posted all around the classroom. Students then ask one another about the location of each place in Japanese, as in “Byōin wa doko desu ka (Where’s the hospital?)” “Soko desu (It’s there).” This familiarizes them with where they need to go during the activity of the next task. In Task 2, the teacher instructs individual learners to go to a particular place, and they move to where the corresponding picture card is located. Then, other students explain what they saw, such as “Kebin-san wa ginkō ni ikimashita (Kevin went to the bank).” After a couple more tasks, the learners come to the final one, “My travel plan.” While looking at travel brochures prepared by the teacher, they create their own travel plans through natural question-and-answer exchanges with the teacher or a classmate, asking things like “Doko desu ka (Where is it?),” “Koko kara dono kurai desu ka (How far is it from here?),” and “Nan de ikimasu ka (How will you travel there?)” Afterwards, they present their travel plans to the class.

As this example indicates, each unit starts with a context-dependent task in which the learners talk about things they see happening in front of them, and finishes with a language-dependent task that involves talking about things that are not “here” or “now.” As a result, the Japanese that they use to communicate naturally progresses from the level of simple sentences to that of coherent paragraphs.

A syllabus that makes sense to the learner

When it comes to using the step-by-step approach to enhancing communication skills, the No. 1 rule is to avoid disrupting the learners’ natural thinking pattern. For instance, the typical grammar syllabus of Japanese language textbooks packages together iku (go), kuru (come), and kaeru (go home). However, looking at our Unit 5 again, you’ll notice that kuru doesn’t appear in the tasks. This is because it would be unnatural to have a travel planning situation where people like your friends or parents suddenly come over to visit.

Let’s consider another example. Many textbooks teach learners how to introduce themselves with both “N desu (I am N)” and “N ja nai desu (I am not N).” In Nihongo Daijobu!, however, the negative form is not presented as part of the self-introduction tasks of Unit 1. Why? Because it’s not natural to introduce yourself to someone with negative statements like “I’m not a student” or “I’m not Indian.”

So, as you can see, we designed Nihongo Daijobu! to introduce each different sentence pattern and expression at the right stage in the learning journey, in a way that makes sense to learners within their natural course of thought. In other words, we emphasized a process of providing learners with the Japanese they need, exactly when they need it.

As a result, the learners’ focus during task performance is shifted away from grammar and expressions to the art of actual communication. With this approach, learners are able to quickly and effortlessly build up the skills needed to communicate effectively in real-world interactions.

Grammar is another important part of the recipe

At the same time, however, Nihongo Daijobu! provides grammar information along the way, as grammar is the foundation for progressing to intermediate Japanese after completion of this textbook. For instance, a grammar section can be found at the end of each unit, and other sections also offer grammar pointers, such as the use of kuru, which had been purposely left out of the Unit 5 tasks. Moreover, one purpose of the “Rhythm / Intonation” section of each unit is to provide additional grammar training; as learners repeatedly practice how to enunciate Japanese naturally and gracefully, they also unconsciously reinforce their mastery of proper sentence construction.

Nihongo Daijobu! was crafted with a wide array of ideas and strategies for enabling learners to master Japanese quickly and enjoyably though communication experiences designed to replicate real-world exchanges as closely as possible in the classroom. I think that teachers, too, will have fun using this textbook in their classes.

In addition to the unit tasks, Nihongo Daijobu! provides further information and resources in the back matter and the supplementary text. These include collections of expressions that can be used as communication strategies, lists of useful vocabulary, hiragana/katakana and kanji drills, grammar self-study sheets, and more. Together, all this material makes it possible to comprehensively learn the fundamentals of Japanese.

Whether it be students, working adults, or whatever, we hope that Nihongo Daijobu! will be of good use to everyone who needs to quickly master Japanese for real-world communication.

Introducing the audio e-book, "Nihongo Daijobu!: Elementary Japanese through Practical Tasks"