{"id":2263,"date":"2020-08-24T17:42:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T17:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2020-08-24T17:43:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T17:43:58","slug":"sowers-23-wlaip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/2020\/08\/24\/sowers-23-wlaip\/","title":{"rendered":"Sowers ’23: WLAIP"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\"\"<\/a><\/p>

When I first <\/span>started <\/span>thinking about how I could make the most out o<\/span>f <\/span>WLAIP\u2019s support<\/span> for a meaningful Summer experience, it didn\u2019t take me long to <\/span>set my heart <\/span>on <\/span>studying my target <\/span>language <\/span>abroa<\/span>d. <\/span>That said, my program <\/span>in Japan <\/span>was cancelled due to concerns over Covid-19<\/span>. H<\/span>owever, <\/span>t<\/span>hanks to the <\/span>gracious <\/span>support<\/span> of Wabash Professor Yao Li, <\/span>as well as to the diligence of the WLAIP staff, <\/span>I have been able to receive a hybrid experience this Summer that <\/span>imitates <\/span>well <\/span>the benefits of immersive learning.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Professor Li and I meet twice each week: in-person on Mondays, and virtually on Thursdays. During our Monday meeting<\/span>s<\/span> we sit down to review<\/span> the<\/span> weekly<\/span>-assigned<\/span> episode from a TV Tokyo program<\/span> for its contextualized and colloquial content. I prepare for each of these meetings by learning a new set of vocabulary<\/span> words<\/span>, phrases, and sentence structures provided by Professor Li, who then analyzes and explains their meaning <\/span>and usage <\/span>as they come up in real conversations. During our Thursday meetings over Skype<\/span> we continue last semester\u2019s work progressing through exercises in the class textbook.<\/span> For these meetings<\/span>, <\/span>I prepare by reviewing essential <\/span>points of <\/span>grammar and formulaic sentence structures.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In addition to <\/span>my <\/span>prepar<\/span>ation<\/span> for these meetings, I am also being held accountable for extensive writing practice. Since most of<\/span> the<\/span> Japanese <\/span>language <\/span>is written with them, this means that I spend a significant portion of my time learning new Chinese characters<\/span>, <\/span>or <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Kanji.<\/span>\u201d<\/span> For this purpose, I have <\/span>written <\/span>about 400 flash cards <\/span>so far <\/span>this Summer. <\/span>My writing practice also includes completing the workbook packets that accompany each chapter of the class textbook.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

By combining authentic conversation with the fundamentals, my language-learning regiment has enabled me to gain a better appreciation and understanding of the<\/span> many<\/span> nuance<\/span>s that make <\/span>Japanese <\/span>a particularly <\/span>difficult<\/span> language<\/span> to<\/span> learn<\/span>. <\/span>As a highly contextualized language, Japanese requires this <\/span>double <\/span>focus<\/span> on the part of students serious about mastering it<\/span>. <\/span>And t<\/span>hat\u2019s not all<\/span>\u2014by<\/span> coming to see with greater clarity the differences between textbook and spoken Japanese, I have become a more confident <\/span>user <\/span>of the language. So, as I move with even greater enthusiasm than before from<\/span> novice to the intermediate level, <\/span>I have my sights set on returning to Japan where I can speak with old friends and new teachers <\/span>with <\/span>greater fulfillment than I <\/span>would <\/span>have <\/span>been able to <\/span>just a <\/span>couple <\/span>months ago.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first started thinking about how I could make the most out of WLAIP\u2019s support for a meaningful Summer experience, it didn\u2019t take me long to set my heart on studying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2020-summer-internships","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2263"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2267,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2263\/revisions\/2267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/summerinternships\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}