関西大学　KUGF Course Guide 2017

19/20

Communication in Japanese Society(Learning Kansai I)In this course, students will learn about community life and culture in the Kansai region. They will become most familiar with where they live, northern Osaka (e.g., Suita City) in terms of their people, geography, sociocultural history, social issues, and contemporary developments. The students will be given chances to communicate with the residents in the region during the course. Kansai-ben, or local dialects will also be a part of their learning in this class. Required level of Japanese: this class will be conducted in Japanese. LEVEL 3 or higher in the Kansai University Japanese language program (JLPT N4 or higher) is strongly recommended for those who are interested in taking this course.2 creditsSpring SemesterFall SemesterCommunication in Japanese Society(Learning Kansai II)In this course, students will learn about community life in the Kansai region. The focus of the classes will be on　rural communities in Kansai, and how the so-called aging society phenomenon, declining rural population, and low birth rate is affecting socialand work networks in agrarian basedcommunities. An important characteristic of this course is actual hands-on participation. Students will bedivided intoteams and learn how crops are grown in Japan. They will experience firsthand the various difficulties of growing rice, the season based processes for planning and growing crops, and how labour intensive such work is. Students will experience cooperating with farmers in the field, and will be involved in the entire process, from planting to harvesting, and will also consider various other important problems faced in rural communities in Kansai such as marketing and branding agricultural produce.2 creditsSpring SemesterFall SemesterCommunication in Japanese Society(Business Japanese)The next challenge for those who have reached the proficiency in Japanese in terms of managing various academic contexts in the university is to cultivate a further pragmatic communication skills in work-based contexts. Business Japanese requires one to have a good foundation of Japanese language knowledge and demands further competence in various social interactional tasks, such as negotiating, collaborating, making inquiries, synthesizing, and managing conflicts. Being able to handle these complex actions in Japanese as a foreign language in business settings would be a highly valued asset for the students who seek their career in a Japanese corporation or Japan-related organizations overseas.2 creditsSpring SemesterContemporary Japan(Japan in Mass Media II)In this course, students will learn about Japan and how various aspects of Japan (e.g., culture, contemporary living styles, social issues, people, art, etc.) are portrayed in mass media. The course will take a broad view of what constitutes ‘mass media’, and will consider such sources and materials as television, paper-based media such as newspapers and magazines, internet-based mediums (e.g., podcast, online news, software, SNS), smartphone/tablet-based mediums (e.g., websites specialised for mobile phone access, apps), film, and various forms of animation. Required Levels: Students must be taking level 5 or above Japanese language course concurrently with this class. Those who do not meet this requirement may be given permission to register upon consultation with the instructor.2 creditsFall SemesterCommunication in Japanese Society(JPN Corporate Culture)Having studied Japanese language in general during the university years, one will most likely be expected to make use of anyone who wishes to work for a Japanese company is most likely expected to use appropriate Japanese language skills in business situations. Pragmatic work-based communication skills may be different from "academic Japanese skills" in various ways. This class will help students develop Japanese business communicative competency. The students in this class will be exposed first to various business fields in Japan. There may be some guest speakers who are at the frontline in these fields during the semester. The students will prepare themselves by building vocabulary specific to business communication and various pragmatic communication styles that are used specifically to business interactional contexts. The purpose of this class is to get a general understanding of Japanese corporate culture(s), which will be highly useful for those who may seek employment in Japan or in Japan-related organizations and corporations overseas. The whole class will be conducted in Japanese language with some scaffolding assistance for language learning, adopting a pedagogical approach called CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). 2 creditsFall SemesterCourse Guide 201717