First-Year Japanese

This course is based on a fun, playful, and effective approach to learning Japanese. This method is a synthesis of many innovative teaching techniques developed to help accelerate students’ language learning. The two major components of this course are: (1) acquisition of basic communication skills of elementary Japanese and (2) learning hiragana and katakana syllabaries as well as some kanji characters. The language is taught multi-modally: lots of physical movement, use of pictures and graphics, conversation practices, storytelling, and some story creating. Students also learn about modern Japanese life. This course is equivalent to one year of high school Japanese.