Japanese JA300

Koichi NISHIGUCHI (Center for International Education and Exchange)

Capacity
   15

Cource Objective
   The purpose of JA300 is three fold. One is to review the different structures and vocabularies that students learned in elementary level while making use of them in different contexts so that students can establish a foundation for practical oral proficiency in Japanese. Secondly, the course will give particular emphasis to establishing a solid foundation in practical written Japanese proficiency while learning approximately 500 kanji and 1000 related kanji-words as well as different structures and grammatical forms that are necessary to formulate a logical explanatory discourse. All in all, the course intends to build in students practical oral and written proficiency in Japanese equivalent that reaches B2.1 (intermediate independet user) in CEFR scale or N3 in JLPT scale.

Requirement / Prerequisite
   Students should have completed JA200 or the equivalent (elementary Japanese).

Cource Content
   This course is designed for post-elementary students to aquire basic practical language skills, both spoken and written further building on the knowledge of Japanese they have acquired in elementary courses. The specific objectives of JA300 are;
   (1) to expand ability for daily communication on topics mostly related to self and immediate environment in both spoken and written Japanese
   (2) to become fluent in using the language structures, vocabulary and phrases both of spoken and written Japanese commonly used in daily conversations and informal discussions
   (3) to be able to talk and understand on a viriety of subjects within his/her field of interest with some assistance from the interlocutor
   (4) to be able to comprehend and write texts constructed with new combinations of learned structures, using hiragana, katakana and approximately 500 and more kanjis

Class Plan
   Topics that will be discussed in the course are;

• different aspects of one's life
• one's family
• one's childhood
• one's near future
• one's relations with Japan
• experiences in which one is helped or assisted by other persons
• experiences in which one helped or assisted other persons
• a story in which someone urges someone else to do something
• a story in which one is urged to do something
• miserable experiences
• evolution of tools/language/human's capacity
• hisotorical development of industry and the society, and change of human living conditions
• education and children
• education system
• place of work in life
• company and individual
• employment system in Japan
• work-life balance
• modern Japanese hisroty and Japanese people
• living in Japan as an individual coming from abroad

Textbooks
   "NIJ: A New Approach to Intermediate Japanese"(Center for International Education and Exchange, Osaka University, to be provided in class)

Grading Policy
   One lecture and two sessions (90 minutes each) will be given in a week for 15 weeks. Regular attendance to all classes is required. Being absent for one third or more of the classes will be considered as withdrawal from the course.
   Attendance and participation 22.5%
   Oral recitation 7.5%
   Assignments 30%
   Quizs 10%
   Final written exam 20%
   Final Presentation 10%
   *The formula is subject to change.