Subject Area: Japanese Studies

This course provides the students with understanding of the concept of Contact Situations with Japanese and assists them with exploring how best they, as a non-native participant, can achieve their objectives of participating in these situations using the Japanese language.

The course is divided into two cycles of 6 weeks: The first deals with communicative and socio-cultural problems that non-Japanese people might face in personal interaction with the Japanese people; the second deals with more particular issues related to the importance of communication/interaction through the study of human relationships in Japanese society. In each cycle, lessons start with comprehension, proceed to practice and then participation in an authentic Contact Situation with Japanese people.

Each cycle is completed with monitoring and reviewing the Contact Situations, while producing rules for Contact Situations, if any, for the learners’ future use.