Students with Varied Degrees of Asianness: Goldmine for Crosscultural Exchange

Abstract

In many Australian universities, “Asian” students have become a prominent feature in Japanese language courses. Some experts in Japanese language education express concern that this popularity amongst Asian students may shake the perception of Japanese as a subject in which students from all backgrounds can compete fairly, and that this phenomena may be a disincentive for non-Asian students to learn the language. I argue that we should not dichotomize students into Asian and nonAsian, since the degree of Asianness in Asian students in fact varies greatly. We should make the most of what we have; students with varied backgrounds are a goldmine for crosscultural exchange. In this paper, I firstly examine students with different degrees of Asianness, and analyzes their motivations for learning the language, and their perceptions about the course. The study reveals that certain motivations and perceptions are affected by the degree of Asianness, but not as a binary mapping (Asian vs. non-Asian). Based on the findings, I make suggestions for turning the classroom environment into one more conducive to crosscultural learning, and thus beneficial to all students. Lastly, I present a pilot study built around the suggestions.