Year 9 Japanese

Course objectives
The aim is to stimulate interest in the Japanese language, Japanese everyday life and to build confidence in exchanging simple information in Japanese. The course will enable students to listen to short conversations and read short texts, to interact in simple conversations in Japanese, to write short sentences using the hiragana alphabet and some kanji and to demonstrate knowledge of Japanese schools.

Course content
The Japanese programme provides basic structures and vocabulary to communicate in Japanese on the following topics.
• Greetings
• Yourself
• Food
• Family and pets
• Hobbies

The emphasis is on using language to communicate, and extensive use is made of pair-work and group activities to practise speaking and listening skills. A dining experience at a local Japanese restaurant adds an authentic context for language use.

Assessment
Regular evaluations are in the target language, in listening, reading, writing and speaking skills as well as vocabulary acquisition. A topic based examination assessing competence in the language skills and cultural knowledge is also included.

Where does the course lead to?
The Year 9 course is complete in itself as an introduction to the language, but it also leads to Year 10 and then to NCEA Level 1 Japanese.

A school trip to Japan will be organized every two or three years if there are sufficient numbers of interested students. This trip enables students to experience the wonders of Japan and use their language in an authentic context.