Japan Societies/Club Activities

There is an active Japanese Society which organises social activities for home students and Japanese Exchange students.

Future Developments

The administrative structure changed in 2006 so that the School of Languages was incorporated into the School of Business and Law. Single Hons. programmes have been discontinued.

Recruitment has increased substantially. In 2005/6 43 students entered Level 1, and this was followed by 40 the following year. This pattern is set to repeat itself in 2007.

New links have been established - University of Sapporo

Problems

JMU would ideally like Business Studies with Japanese students to split their year in Japan into the first semester studying Japanese language and the second semester on a work placement. However, the present visa system does not allow students to train in a work environment. At the same time, the cost of the year abroad can be prohibitive and deters a number of well-qualified applicants, while administrative procedures and regulations regarding aspects of the year abroad that may change every year also hinder and discourage the teaching/learning process.

Additional Information

In 1989, the DTI provided funding which was used to set up the original BA in International Studies (Japanese) which has since been modified and extended. The BA in Modern Language Studies, the elective Japanese provision and more recently, the BA (Hons) in Asia Pacific Studies, (validated in 2001) and the BA (Hons) in Japanese and TESOL are all new initiatives which were not part of the original DTI programme.