Sussex Centre for Language Studies
Open courses in modern languages
Japanese Language and Culture - Stage 1
20 weekly meetings, 1.5 hours each
An introduction to the language of everyday situations for complete beginners. The
emphasis is on understanding and communicating. Related handouts will be
provided as the course framework and to enable you to effectively work on your own.
The course aims to give you sufficient language to be able to deal with simple
everyday situations, to include: Personal information - family/social arrangements •
Directions - time, numbers • Travel/transport • Food and drink - buying and selling •
Accommodation - hotel, lodgings, business • Holidays and leisure.
Grammar and functions included are: • articles • present tense of common
regular/irregular verbs • negatives • questions • descriptions • adjectives • personal
pronouns • polite/familiar forms • prepositions • possessives • idea of future • one
main past tense • time phrases/quantities.
You will be encouraged to learn Japanese scripts (Hiragana and Katakana) and will
be given an insight into the culture of the country within the framework of your
language studies. You will be encouraged to work out your own strategy for study in
line with the syllabus and your own perceived needs. There will be an opportunity to
study personal cultural interests linked to the language.
Course learning outcomes
By the end of the course you will have improved your language skills and be able to
speak slowly to get a message across in a variety of everyday situations. There will
be errors and problems of accent but basic communication will be possible. You will
be able to comprehend and act on both simple written and spoken stimuli. Simple
grammatical structures will have been taught. You will have gained a better
appreciation of the relationships between the language, history and culture of the
country. You will have developed greater confidence and enhanced autonomy in
your language learning.
Teaching and learning methods
Communicative language teaching, particularly tutor-led group work, will guide you
through the basic structures and functions of the beginners' syllabus. There will be
practice in the four skills, listening, speaking, reading and basic writing. You will be
encouraged to develop basic communicative skills, to learn grammatical structures
and to interpret simple written and spoken stimuli. There will be preparation work set
which may be taken from a course book.
Built into the course will be a number of assignments to allow you and your tutor to
gauge progress made. These assignments naturally form part of the course and will
usually be multi-skilled, involving some reading, writing, speaking and listening. It
will be important to complete a learning/study plan and take an active part in the
classes by completing the assignments set. You will be given an opportunity to
pursue your own personal research into a topic of cultural interest which contains
some analysis or debate.
Certificate of Completion
At the end of the course you will receive an individual Record of Learning on request,
giving details of the course and your achievement of the aims and objectives. If the
tutor considers that you have gained as much as possible from the course, have
achieved the learning outcomes and have participated in the assessed activities, a
Certificate of Completion of the course will subsequently be issued, on request.
Bibliography
This course is based on lessons 1 - 11 in “Japanese for Busy People I, Revised 3rd
Edition, Romanized Version”.
ISBN : 9784770030085
Publisher : Kodansha International
Bilingual dictionary:
Webster’s New World Japanese Dictionary (Webster’s)
Collins Shubun English-Japanese Dictionary (Collins)
Self Study:
Japanese for Busy People I : The Workbook - 3rd Edition.
(Kodansha International) ISBN: 978477003034-4