Thursday, November 22, 2007

CCUP

Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books
    (絵本を活用した国際理解教育開発研究)

On Friday, November 22, I presented at the JALT conference about Cross Cultural Understanding Using Picture Books (CCUP). CCUP is a two year project conducted by the Education Development Center (EDC) in Boston and the Iwate University Faculty of Education. The project had been sponsored by the Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership (CGP). The project uses 15 English picture books to teach different aspects of the US culture to Japanese elementary school children during the period of integrative study. The objective of the prject is to not only teach students about the US culture but to help them understand their own culture better by considering the similarities and differences between the two cultures.

In the first year of the project, EDC selected books and created teaching guides for the books. In the second year of the project, Iwate University recruited teachers across Iwate to do pilot lessons. So far, there have been about 24 pilot lessons conducted in 18 schools. In this post I am including the link to my powerpoint presentation as well as links to all 15 teaching guides which are available for anyone to use.

Here are the titles of the book and its guide in zip format.

1. Yoko (guide with lesson materials)
2. Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever (guide)
3. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop (guide with lesson materials)
4. Covered Wagon, Bumpy Trails (guide with lesson materials)
5. Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King (guide)
6. Sector 7 (guide with lesson materials)
7. Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs (guide)
8. My First Thanksgiving (guide with lesson materials)
9. Too Many Tamales (guide with lesson materials)
10. The World Turns Round and Round (guide)
11. Tulip Sees America (guide)
12. Let's Play Hopscotch, Let's Jump Rope (guide with lesson materials)
13. The Goat in the Rug (guide with lesson materials)
14. Parade Day (guide)
15. The Story of the Statue of Liberty (guide with lesson materials)
16. Tips and tricks for using the guides(ガイドの使い方について)