Subject Area: Japanese Studies

This course provides the students with deeper, refined appreciation 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 with regard to the use of variety of medium of communication; the second deals with more empirical issues related to professional interaction with the Japanese people through preparation for and participation in an off-campus contact situation. 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 and norms and strategies for Contact Situations, if any, for the learners’ future use.