On November 27, 2023, I presented “Teaching Toki Pona in Japan: Insights and Implications” at the JALT International Conference 2023 in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
In the presentation, I introduced the basics of Toki Pona and then outlined the activities of the club I started at my university in 2022. From reflections and a student questionnaire, I found the following:
- Metalinguistic Awareness: I saw students become more aware of grammar in general, and especially part of speech.
- They also had a chance to experience a language that is even more high context than Japanese, which is a change from studying a low context foreign language.
- Communication Skills: Students felt that their skill in circumlocution improved.
- Teacher trainees appreciated experiencing a different approach to language teaching than they had been familiar with.
- Students also did not mind a translation rather than communication-based approach, and appreciated the fact that they felt confident about new grammar after drill and translation activities.
I concluded that because Toki Pona requires such a low investment in time and effort to learn, more formal research on these and other benefits is warranted.