Basic Japanese is a lively and informative introduction to the Japanese language. It is for anyone, regardless of age, who is interested in learning Japanese as a foreign language. Basic Japanese is taught at elementary, intermediate and advanced levels.
The course contains speech and writing components. The spoken component deals with the use of Japanese in realistic everyday situations and the development of the student's skills in listening, reading and speaking Japanese. The written component introduces writing assignments, graded for difficulty, to practice Japanese syntactic structures. Students will learn basic grammar, progressing from simple to more complex structures.
The classroom environment facilitates teaching and learning of the highest order, and Japanese is used in interesting learning activities, such as language games, role-plays, debates and discussions.
Students learn the Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji and Ro Ma Ji alphabet and basic grammar. Japanese speech sounds are also taught, and students practice reading Hiragana and Katakana. Japanese is used in situations such as greetings, conducting telephone conversations, buying and selling. Role-plays and other learning activities are part of the lessons.
The written component progresses to more complex grammatical structures. Comprehension passages and essays, as well as other structured writing exercises, are set to increase the learner's competence. Appropriate situational Japanese is the focus of the spoken component, as in the elementary stage.
Basic Japanese at advanced level exploits and augments the student's competence. Written coursework consists of thought-provoking comprehension passages, newspaper and magazine articles. Similarly, the speech component stresses articulate Japanese speech, through debates and discussion, and individual speech-making.