Joint Education Program held with FAU

September 26, 2018

Here at TUFS, as part of the diverse “Joint Education Program”, joint classes are being held with many international partner institutions.

As part of this program, the 8th Japan-Germany Intensive Tandem Learning Course was held at the Kusatsu Seminar House (Gunma Prefecture) from Monday the 3rd until Saturday the 8th of September (2018). This was a study camp for 19 students of Japanology from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) and 19 students studying German from TUFS, at which they taught their respective countries’ languages and cultures to each other.

Tandem learning was done one on one at this camp. The tandem learning activity was essay writing in which participants interviewed their partners, jotted down the information and opinions shared with them, and wrote essays based on these (Japanese students wrote in German, German students wrote in Japanese). After finishing their essays, the students exchanged papers with their partners, and marked each other’s pieces. Lastly, the students analyzed their essays together with their partners, and practiced reading them aloud. Each set of this activity took 3 hours, and a total of four sets were completed.

Aside from the tandem learning activity, participants formed groups and did various activities such as researching Japanese hot spring culture and creating skits in both Japanese and German. Through this camp and its tandem and group activities, TUFS students were not only able to spend six days with German students their age and learn German they can use to make deeper friendships with young people in Germany, but were also able to support the German students’ Japanese learning, and had the opportunity to think deeply about Japanese language and culture when answering their questions.

In addition to this, a practical Japanese course was held at TUFS for 15 of the FAU students from Monday the 10th until Friday the 14th of September.

The curriculum planning, teaching materials and course management for this course was carried out by TUFS undergraduate and postgraduate students who partook in the summer course “Japanese Language Education Training”.