Employment
Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) & PlaySay
It’s that time again! Those planning on taking the JLPT test or interesting in improving your Japanese should check out PlaySay. Click on the BT PlaySay link to test it out! PlaySay can be downloaded to ANY MP3 device. The picture above and below show PlaySay on an iPod. (Pix credit to Japan Newbie)
PlaySay is a great resource for preparing for the Japanese Language ProficiencyTest (nihongo n?ryoku shiken?), or JLPT, which is a standardized test to evaluate and certify the language proficiency of non-native Japanese speakers. It is held once every year, on the first Sunday of December. The JLPT has four levels beginning at level 4 and progressing to level 1 – the most difficult. The Japan Foundation estimates that level 4 is reached after approximately 150 hours of study and level 1 after approximately 900 hours of study.
Content
The content of the test is determined by the Test Content Specification (Shutsudai kijun?). The Test Content Specification was first published in 1994 and partially revised in 2002 and serves as a reference for examiners to compile test questions (rather than as a study guide for students). The JLPT student is therefore required to obtain past-exam papers or other publications that reference the Test Content Specification in order to determine what to study.
The test specification is written in Japanese and consists of kanji lists, expression lists, vocabulary lists and grammar lists for all four JLPT levels.
The JLPT exam does not require the examinee to write in Japanese, as all of the questions are multiple choice. The questions classified as writing involve choosing the correct word or grammar to complete a sentence, or choosing which kanji is used in a particular word. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) & PlaySay
It’s that time again! Those planning on taking the JLPT test or interesting in improving your Japanese should check out PlaySay. Click on the BT PlaySay link to test it out! PlaySay can be downloaded to ANY MP3 device. The picture above and below show PlaySay on an iPod. (Pix credit to Japan Newbie)
PlaySay is a great resource for preparing for the Japanese Language ProficiencyTest (nihongo n?ryoku shiken?), or JLPT, which is a standardized test to evaluate and certify the language proficiency of non-native Japanese speakers. It is held once every year, on the first Sunday of December. The JLPT has four levels beginning at level 4 and progressing to level 1 – the most difficult. The Japan Foundation estimates that level 4 is reached after approximately 150 hours of study and level 1 after approximately 900 hours of study.
Content
The content of the test is determined by the Test Content Specification (Shutsudai kijun?). The Test Content Specification was first published in 1994 and partially revised in 2002 and serves as a reference for examiners to compile test questions (rather than as a study guide for students). The JLPT student is therefore required to obtain past-exam papers or other publications that reference the Test Content Specification in order to determine what to study.
The test specification is written in Japanese and consists of kanji lists, expression lists, vocabulary lists and grammar lists for all four JLPT levels.
The JLPT exam does not require the examinee to write in Japanese, as all of the questions are multiple choice. The questions classified as writing involve choosing the correct word or grammar to complete a sentence, or choosing which kanji is used in a particular word. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Foreign students to fill the halls
Japanese universities look abroad in hopes of upping their sagging enrollments
Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from.
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| Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty. Classes are taught both in English and Japanese. TOMOKO OTAKE PHOTOS |
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Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers. She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown.
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq.-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
“I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international,” Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities. “I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective.”
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students. APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries. (さらに…)
1 in 7 Japanese kids live in poverty
According to statistics released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, one out of every seven Japanese children under 17 lives in poverty.
Poverty has long been known to adversely effect children’s health and education, but there also are concerns now that growing up in poverty tends to lock children into a cycle of poverty that leaves them economically disadvantaged all their lives.
A 20-year-old woman, who works for a private organization in the Kanto region, recalled that until she entered a foster home in her later years of primary school, she had seldom attended class.
Zurui’s note: “The poverty line is considered one half the median income, or around ¥2.3 million per year. The current poverty rate for Japan is 15.3 percent. That means more than 19 million live below the poverty line. Forty percent of the more-than-1.2-million single mothers make less than ¥1.5 million per year.
This was because her mother was sickly, leaving their home untidy, with broken glass littering the floor. The woman recalls having to shoplift bread and snacks to feed her two younger brothers. Her unemployed father often left home after getting drunk.
“I thought I was different from other children and I tried to believe that life wasn’t real,” she said.
The plight of children living in poverty can usually be attributed to their parents’ unemployment or low incomes. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Japinos & Japayukis
I learned two new terms today, “Japinos and Japayuki.” Thank goodness that I will never use them! Here is a follow-up to a few stories that I previously blogged on abandoned families in Japan…
Some 70,000 Filipinos live in Japan, most working as entertainers. An estimated 50,000 (some groups put the number as high as 100,000) Japanese-Filipino children — known as “Japinos” — live in the Philippines, often abandoned or orphaned by their fathers after liaisons with Filipino women, who in most cases worked as entertainers in Japan, said Akira Oka, head of the Shin-Nikkeijin Network or SNN.
While some in Japan have probably heard of stories similar to the one above most have not heard of the families abandoned in Japan by USFJ servicemen. This was reported by Stars & Stripes.
…on the land of the rising half-breeds (not my term)…
J-cast includes data to support its observations. According to the ministry, the number of infants born in 2006 with at least one foreign parent came to 3.2 percent, or one child out of 30. This means that about one child in every school class will be of either non-Japanese ancestry or part Japanese.
International marriages are increasing, the site says. The ministry noted that 6.6 percent of couples wed had at least one foreign partner, which makes one couple out of every 15. This is the highest level in the past 10 years. In the central wards of Tokyo and in Osaka and Nagoya, the rate [of intermarriage] has reached the high figure of one couple out of 10.
…and on a revision to the Nationality Law:
The government plans to revise the Nationality Law to remove a provision requiring parents to be married for their children to obtain Japanese citizenship, according to government sources.
The decision came after the Supreme Court ruled in June that denying Japanese citizenship to children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and foreign mothers is unconstitutional, the sources said.
Well it seems that the stars are starting to align and progress is being made in the fight to help biracial children and their mothers find a better life, and most probably citizenship, in Japan. Read the Japan Times article below for the rest of the story: (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Japinos & Japayukis
I learned two new terms today, “Japinos and Japayuki.” Thank goodness that I will never use them! Here is a follow-up to a few stories that I previously blogged on abandoned families in Japan…
Some 70,000 Filipinos live in Japan, most working as entertainers. An estimated 50,000 (some groups put the number as high as 100,000) Japanese-Filipino children — known as “Japinos” — live in the Philippines, often abandoned or orphaned by their fathers after liaisons with Filipino women, who in most cases worked as entertainers in Japan, said Akira Oka, head of the Shin-Nikkeijin Network or SNN.
While some in Japan have probably heard of stories similar to the one above most have not heard of the families abandoned in Japan by USFJ servicemen. This was reported by Stars & Stripes.
…on the land of the rising half-breeds (not my term)…
J-cast includes data to support its observations. According to the ministry, the number of infants born in 2006 with at least one foreign parent came to 3.2 percent, or one child out of 30. This means that about one child in every school class will be of either non-Japanese ancestry or part Japanese.
International marriages are increasing, the site says. The ministry noted that 6.6 percent of couples wed had at least one foreign partner, which makes one couple out of every 15. This is the highest level in the past 10 years. In the central wards of Tokyo and in Osaka and Nagoya, the rate [of intermarriage] has reached the high figure of one couple out of 10.
…and on a revision to the Nationality Law:
The government plans to revise the Nationality Law to remove a provision requiring parents to be married for their children to obtain Japanese citizenship, according to government sources.
The decision came after the Supreme Court ruled in June that denying Japanese citizenship to children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and foreign mothers is unconstitutional, the sources said.
Well it seems that the stars are starting to align and progress is being made in the fight to help biracial children and their mothers find a better life, and most probably citizenship, in Japan. Read the Japan Times article below for the rest of the story: (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Teaching English in Japan with Ato – Question Everything, Pt. II
Part 16: Safe?! No I am not!
5-minutes before the beginning of the class and I am still unable to find one of the teachers. I had assumed that she was in homeroom, the bathroom or late but i could be mistaken. I decide to wait in the class. I double check my printed schedule and find the class (making sure to walk by all the other classes in case she’s in one of them), but she is not there. The science teacher is there…and he doesn’t speak English.
After enlisting the help of some of the Philippine students (whose English is invariably better than that of the Japanese students) I discover that she is absent today and that he, the science teacher that doesn’t speak a lick of English, will be supervising their self study(?).
In broken English and even more broken Japanese I inform him that I would still like to try to teach at least the target phrases, but it turns out to be a disaster since the students speak more English than he does and use the opportunity to make fun of every single thing I say. Not being able to understand what they’re making fun of (because he (*sigh*) doesn’t speak English), he cannot reprimand them properly and classroom order disintegrates…
…I decide that I cannot teach this class without a Japanese English teacher present and leave the room to the hyena-like laughter of the students. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Teaching English in Japan with Ato – Question Everything!
Part 15: One of the more annoying situations that the foreign English teacher can find himself in is being stuck between a disorganized company and an even less organized school.
I rotate between schools, with the end effect being that I have the schedule for the next school sent to me before I’m scheduled to go there. This (for obvious reasons) is to provide me with enough time to plan my lessons before I get to the school..
Sounds great doesn’t it? Flawless in it’s simplicity…
In actuality this seldom happens.
In the past I religiously received my schedule 1 – 3 days after I had already started working at the school.
Not…useful… (さらに…)
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