GENERAL OVERVIEW
Japanese is introduced in Year 7 allowing students to complete their mandatory 100 hours of Language study.
The course requires the use of a variety of resources that makes it engaging, modern and relevant:
- Electronic textbook
- Electronic Whiteboard
- CD and computer recorded Japanese dialogues
- Laptops
- Textbooks
- Documentaries
- Japanese language apps
- Teacher generated booklets, games and activities
- 120 page workbook (supplied by student)
- Japanese food, animations and origami
WHY JAPANESE?
Due to our geographical neighbours, Asian Languages is a priority area of study within the Department of Education. Japan is one of our largest trading partners, and in our ever-increasing global community, being multi-lingual is a distinct advantage over other job seekers in a variety of well-paid industries.
How Does Learning Japanese Benefit My Child as a Learner?
Each unit in the Year 7 Course is aligned with current global issues or concepts. These concepts are relevant to every student and develop cross-curricular links to other subjects. These concepts can be found in the Course Scope and Sequence on the previous page.
The key competencies of Literacy and Numeracy are embedded into the course through a variety of teaching approaches and activities. By studying the grammatical systems and other features of the Japanese language, learners reflect on and revisit similar systems and structures in English, reinforcing their importance and accuracy. Learners also have the opportunity to revisit reading and writing skills such as skimming and scanning, navigating texts and accurate sentence structures and spelling in Japanese. Learners are constantly reminded that they can use these skills in other subject areas. Learners are required to learn Japanese number systems and display collected data in tables and graphs.
Study strategies and memory techniques that can be used for all of their subjects are explicitly taught in Japanese due to the need to memorise the writing system and vocabulary. Learner reflection is introduced and used for each unit of work. This helps develop awareness of how well they are succeeding, why, and what change in strategy they can use to improve further.