Japanese Studies

Konnichiwa! Offering Japanese at LAC provides students with an interaction that brings them into close contact with another culture, and endeavours to immerse them in traditions that motivate them to explore the international world. It also offers students an opportunity to share and embrace the uniqueness of the Japanese language, its customs, and creates a broader outlook of language and people. Discovering diversity in languages that have been gifted by God is another reason why the Japanese department is so unique. Choosing Japanese will also provide an avenue for students to visit our sister school, Hiroshima Saniku Gakuin, in Hiroshima, Japan.  Looking to learn and write interesting scripts, speak conversational Japanese, understand where ‘karate’ and ‘karaoke’ came from, play language games, understand the psyche of ‘I survived a Japanese game show’, create your very own ‘self-introduction’ , ‘swat a character’, have your very own Japanese ‘buddy’ and go on a trip to Japan? You’ve chosen the right subject!

The Japanese Department offers Japanese conversational and written skills as a ‘taster’, rotational course to Years 7, 8, and 9. Due to growing interest we now offer it as a year-long optional subject in Year 10. We receive curriculum development advice from Junko Tomooka, Adviser for Japanese Language in New Zealand, and are in close connection with Massey University lecturers for developing ‘Learning Languages’. Eventually, our aim is to offer Japanese as a NCEA Level 1 subject. Our vision is to give every student who passes through the doors of LAC an opportunity to learn a second language and to build sensitivity, with the aid of our ‘special character’, towards other second language learners. One of the other major benefits we have is the exchange programme that we have with our sister school in Japan. Every year, about 15-20 Japanese students stay at LAC from July to December, and this provides a great support for the LAC students learning Japanese.