2007 Curriculum
Program of Study
Courses offered by the Japanese School normally meet four hours each day and students should expect to devote about the same number of hours to out-of-class preparation. Each course covers the equivalent of one academic year's worth of material within a nine week period.
JAPN 3101-3102-3103-3104
Beginning Japanese I
An intensive introduction to the Japanese language. The course covers most basic grammatical structures and everyday vocabulary items, and introduces hiragana, katakana, and approximately 100 elementary kanji. Practices are conducted to develop all four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in meaningful communicative exercises.
Target OPI rating at the end of the session: Novice High
Textbook: Makino, Hatasa & Hatasa.
Nakama 1: communication, culture, and context. Houghton Mifflin Inc.
JAPN 3201-3202-3203-3204
Beginning Japanese II
Designed for students who have completed approximately 150 hours of formal training in Japanese. Students must be able to read and write hiragana, katakana, and 100 to 150 kanji. The course will begin with a review of basic patters and move quickly to cover new materials. In addition to the materials provided by the textbook, authentic materials (e.g. television, films, Internet, newspaper, etc.) will be incorporated into the instruction.
Target OPI rating at the end of the session: Intermediate Mid
Textbook: Hatasa, Hatasa, & Makino.
Nakama 2: communication, culture, and context. Houghton Mifflin Inc.
JAPN 3301-3302-3303-3304
Intermediate Japanese I
Designed for students who have had approximately 300 hours of formal instruction at the college level. Students must be comfortable with hiragana and katakana, and know approximately 300 to 400 kanji. Students will first go through a review of basic grammatical patterns. The remaining weeks in the course will be given over to the study of reading and video materials drawn from a wide range of everyday sources.
Target OPI rating at the end of the session: Intermediate High
JAPN 3401-3402-3403-3404
Intermediate Japanese II
Designed for students who had approximately 400 hours of instruction at the college level. Students coming into this course should be able to read about 500 to 800 kanji. A variety of materials—essays, short stories,TV programs, and newspaper articles— will be used as texts.These materials are chosen not only as tools for language instruction, but also as a means to increase understanding of the socio-cultural background of contemporary Japan.The aim is to get students to function at an advanced level; that is, to be able to read most modern Japanese written materials with the aid of dictionary and to be able to handle most conversational tasks, including formal situations, with relative ease.
Target OPI rating at the end of the session: Advanced Low
JAPN 3501-3502-3503-3504
Advanced Japanese
Designed for graduate students and professionals with advanced skills in spoken and written Japanese. Undergraduates with exceptional preparation or extensive background living in Japan may also enroll. The prerequisite is at least three or more years of rigorous formal study in modern Japanese, or an extended period of a year or more studying or working in Japan. Students should know at least 1,200 kanji, or have advanced reading skills in Chinese. Instruction takes a multi-skill approach that employs a variety of materials: scholarly essays, newspapers, short stories, and manga. Video and audio materials are also used extensively to improve listening comprehension and oral presentation skills. The approach of the course is to study the language through a study of topics in the culture, and it presumes a high level of proficiency in all four language areas.
Target OPI rating at the end of the session: Advanced Mid
Recommended Materials: an electronic dictionary.
JAPN 6510
Application of Information Technology in Teaching Japanese
This is an intensive three-week non-degree graduate course for pre-service and in-service teachers of Japanese as a foreign language. It is designed for practical application in language class, distinguishing itself from a mere software training course. Participants will improve their IT skills in order to enhance course management, development of off-line and interactive on-line materials. Training will be provided in a variety of areas including word processing, spread sheets, graphics editing and the use of digital photo, sound and video recording technology. Participants will survey various programs (educational software) and resources developed for Japanese language instruction, and will learn the use digital video for language teaching. They will also be introduced to a template-based authoring system (e.g., Hot Potatoes) to create interactive online exercises with video which will be deliverable on the web.
Participants will meet 3-4 hours daily and will have ample time for hands-on practice. In addition to daily assignments, they will complete a class project which involves the creation of web pages with sound and video. Classes will be conducted in Japanese. Since this course is offered as a part of the Japanese School, participants will have opportunities to observe language courses during the session.
This course earns one Middlebury unit, or the equivalent of 3 credits.