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Abstract

In April 2020, the corona virus pandemic caused most universities in Japan, and the rest of the world, to go online. This article reflects upon the challenges faced in creating an online asynchronous oral interpretation class. Through the reflection, the need for sensitivity and attention to student well-being, particularly mental well-being, is considered an essential focus for the teacher, in addition to learning. The article introduces a parody song project created which focused on nurturing the emotional well-being of the students. 2020 年度前期は新型コロナウィルスの影響により日本においても多くの授業がオンライ ンで行われた。この論文では、ドラマの授業の中でも、特にオーラルインタープリテー ションの授業においてオンデマンド方式で授業を行った試みを取り上げる。オンライン であるからこそ、学生の、特に 1 年生のメンタルケアに心を配る必要がある。この論文 では、その点を考慮して行ったパロディーソングプロジェクトを紹介する。 n April of 2020, after delaying the start of the semester due to the corona virus pandemic, my university, much like many universities in Japan and throughout the world, made the decision to move classes online. Like most teachers, I began frantically trying to learn how to use a multitude of applications and platforms available and assess how best to teach communication classes online. As noted by my colleagues from across the nation, some of the I goal of performing the assigned text. I also included a tutorial on how to use Flipgrid, (Microsoft Corporation, 2018) an online website and mobile phone application which allows to students to record and share videos. Students were then instructed to upload the videos of their performance onto Flipgrid for feedback, which I gave as a comment in Flipgrid in video format. After feedback was given to the students, they were instructed to rehearse and post a final presentation of the text for grading, again via Flipgrid. While interaction did take place in this activity, it was between myself and each individual student only. Overall, the students worked diligently and I saw improvement in their abilities to be expressive, in their pronunciation, and in their intonation. I was pleased to see students using their faces, their hands, and more importantly, conveying emotion in their performance. There were some benefits to using the medium of video as the students seemed more at ease being expressive and creative in taking risks. In the past, it was incredibly challenging to get students to become comfortable with using their facial expressions, raising their voices, and changing up the rhythm of their speech. I was surprised to see and hear genuine feeling and vulnerability, with students taking different pauses, different stresses of words, rather than copying my own example. Although, in one sense, this mode gave freedom for students to try new ways of expression, students could not experience the joy of working together with other students, nor could they attempt the essential challenge of learning to communicate emotion to an audience. It was all pretty dry and feedback came only from the teacher. It was unlike a normal oral interpretation class where we could exchange ideas and work together as a class, and receive both teacher and peer ...