JLfest 2024 | The 17th Annual Japanese Language Festival
RESULT ANNOUNCEMENT
Saturday, August 28, 2021
GOLD Prize Winner:
TEAM 「ニコニコピーチ」
Hafizah Binti Rashid
Sharifah Nur Ain Aisyah Binti Syed Omar
Aliah Hanani Binti Amer
Lim Jia Xin
(UNIVERSITI MALAYA)
Theme:
Let's Cook in the Kitchen!
Learning Objective:
To learn about vocabularies on some food/dishes, ingredients cooking utensils, and adjectives (related to food).
"A very educational game. A good variety of questions and encompasses all the 3 writings, namely Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. However, the overuse of Kanji words may burden some learners. Including more words in Katakana would give a good balance."
EDWARD LEE
マス目全てが違う問題で、質問の内容がとても創造的ですばらしいと思いました。
TENGA CELICA
SILVER Prize Winner:
TEAM : SPIRITED
Tan Ying Yu
Tan Xiao Shih
Chan Xiang Wei
Low Jie Yin
(SMK SULTANAH ASMA)
Theme:
Japanese Cuisine
Learning Objective:
To recognize food-related vocabularies in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji
"Easy to follow. The reward and penalty given could bring fun for players.."
DAYANG NOR ASHIKIN HARUNi
"The board design looks simple and nice. Questions are not too long and they are easy to read. The rules are simple too and suitable for the targeted age group.
FIONA TOH SHU CHEW
BRONZE Prize Winner:
TEAM : ELITE
Nor Alya Zaqiah Binti Zubir
Nurul Farhanis Binti Asmadi
Wan Nurhana Humaira Binti Wan Safarin
Husna Batrisyia Binti Hairulhazi
(SMK ISKANDAR SHAH)
Theme:
Sports - Olympics
Learning Objective:
To recognize the name of various sports in Japanese and some other simple Kanji.
オリンピックという今の話題を取り上げたこと、3つのタスクがあることがとてもいいと思います。
TENGA CELICA
"Simple design and nice to look at. The questions need further improvement. Some did not match the objectives of the game, especially Kanji. Some errors. And maybe improvise the overall design to make it looks more like a digital board game..
FIONA TOH SHU CHEW
PANEL OF JUDGES
EDUCATOR PANEL
Edward LEE
Vice President
JAPANESE LANGUAGE SOCIETY OF MALAYSIA
Fiona Toh Shu Chew
Japanese Language Teacher
SM SAINS MIRI
Dayang Nor Ashikin Harun
Principal Assistant Director
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION MALAYSIA
TENGA Celica
Lecturer
THE JAPAN FOUNDATION, KUALA LUMPUR
PROGRAMMER PANEL
Heimrih Lim Meng Kee
Technical Support Team
JLfest 2021
Ooi Wei Ling
Technical Support Team
JLfest 2021
COMMENTS FROM THE JUDGES
"'This competition is probably among the most challenging and engaging competitions under JLfest. The process involves several layers and taxes both the right and left brains of the contestants. Students need not only to cope with their language knowledge and creative thinking but also need to learn to program a digital game. Hence, I salute all the 6 finalist teams from the inital 13 competing teams. You have done well!
This year, most games focus on vocabulary building, rather than sentence patterns or language skills such as reading and listening. Perhaps this is because students have to spend time learning to use SCRATCH, the programming tool specified by the organizer. A series of YouTube tutorials were produced by the organizer for this purpose.
However, it was heartbreaking to see the quality of the students' work dropped significantly when there were glaring mistakes in the spelling and sentence construction. Although it was not wrong to focus on the cultural aspects or geography of Japan, missing out on the main focus of language learning in the game is also another 'mottainai'.
While the competition rules state that teachers are NOT to be involved directly in the students' development of the game, playing the role of a devil-advocator during the game's development and a quality controller before students' submission of the game proposal document and the game would help raise the standard of the game. However, teachers still have to tread carefully so as not to stifle the students' initiative and creativity."
EDWARD LEE
"'All the games are creatively created. Unfortunately, some of the games are not meant for Japanese language learning. Players should be encouraged to learn more to win the game. But all the ideas are very good and could be improvised for a new way of language learning tools. Congratulations!"
DAYANG NOR ASHIKIN HARUN
"'Some groups are able to organize their ideas and relate it to everyday lives. In terms of learning content, some groups allow players to learn words that players can use in daily lives, which is good. In terms of game design, participants are able to allow players to learn together but they might overlook the excitement that learners like in most of the games today. They can challenge themselves to add some exciting elements. They can also think of how players can learn collaboratively, not only to play together.."
FIONA TOH SHU CHEW
まず、学生が日本語を使ってプログラミングでゲームを作ったということがとてもすごいことだと思います。どの作品も皆さんのこだわりを感じ、それぞれの作品全てにとてもいい部分がありました。すごろくと言ってもただ単純に前に進むのではなく、日本語の質問に答えられたらポイントが貰えるポイント制のものや、止まったマスで日本について知ることができるものなど、すごろくにもバラエティーがあることを私自身が学ばせていただきました。 作品を作るまでにはたくさんの困難なことがあったと思いますが、私は友人とともに難しい課題に取り組むこと自体に意義があると思います。これからも勉強だからという理由だけでなく、みなさんが作った作品のように楽しく日本語や日本文化に親しんでほしいと思います。そして、将来マレーシアと日本、さらには世界をまたぐような人になってほしいと願っています。 このイベントを運営しているスタッフの方々、このような学生が活躍できる素晴らしいイベントを企画・運営するのは並大抵でない労力が必要だと思います。本当にお疲れさまでした。
TENGA CELICA
"'Through programming, students are able to improve their problem-solving skills as they learn how to code their Sugoroku Language Board Game by customizing their board. It is also a platform for them to improve logical thinking as throughout the programming process, they have to think of the steps on how to achieve their required results. Besides, students are also able to have fun learning Japanese by thinking of suitable questions to set for players in their game.
The contestants were really great as all the teams have different approaches in making their Sugoroku Language Board Game. They exceeded my expectations by coming up with very creative and interesting ways in their programming which reflect their creativity as well as the keenness to learn.."
HEIMRIH LIM MENG KEE
"'Programming is less about knowledge and more about a way of communicating with computers in the nowadays digitalised world. This lead to the emergence of easy-to-use programming software for kids such as Scratch, Tynker, CodeMonkey, LightBot, etc.
The SUGOROKU competition incorporates language learning with programming and gaming. It also allow students to socialize online during the pandemic.
n this competition, we saw a lot of different creativity, ideas and earnestness of the students in engaging with new things. Their final product may not be the best, but they did their best! They managed to use very simple Japanese to conduct their games and delighted the players during the competition. Some were also new to the concept of programming and graphic design. I would like to give them a big applause!
Studying while playing is a childlike quality that students should have. It's time to change the 'spoonfeed' mindset towards education and provide an environment for students develop their minds and skills in a similar delightful way like the SUGOROKU Language Board Game."
OOI WEI LING