Japanese Language Support in the Summer School of Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies (IUC)

[Date & Time] Monday, July 12, at 13:15～14:40
[Place] At Japanese Language Studies Center, Pacifico Yokohama・Yokohama International Cooperation Center 5F
[Attendants] 7 KSGG members

IUC is an intermediate and advanced Japanese language education and studies institute for undergraduate and graduate students of universities in mainly North America. This time we helped out those Summer School students with their Japanese study. Each of our 7 KSGG members talked with two students for 20 minutes on a one-on-one basis.
My first student, Mr. O, was a graduate student of Hawaii University. His theme was “Noh and Stage Arts.” He was attracted by Noh after seeing Noh performance in New York and started studying Japanese in order to learn about it. He also performs Noh as an actor, and has a plan to present Noh performance in English in order to popularize Noh play in America. As a Japanese, I was inspired by his enthusiasm.
Mr. C, who had studied criminology in Washington University, carried out researches on “Crimes in Japan,” and thus his questions were related with crime, including “What is the reason for the declining crime rate in Japan?,” “ Are Japanese police officers friendly?,” and “What is the difference between the Japanese yakuza and LA gangs?” I have to raise my hat to him; he had studied criminology in Taiwan in Chinese for two years.
Their activities taught me the importance of language studies for a particular object. Other KSGG attendants said they also enjoyed talking with the students on various themes and had a good exchange with them. This support which KSGG started last year should be continued in the future.