International students completing their Intensive Japanese Course and students in the first year of the Global Scientists and Engineers Program (GSEP), Tokyo Tech’s English-language bachelor’s degree program, shared their views and interests in Japanese at a joint poster presentation event on Ookayama Campus on January 18. The event was hosted by Tokyo Tech’s Institute for Liberal Arts.
International students explaining poster content to elementary school students
Giving the final presentations of their respective courses at the event were ten international students. These included two Japanese government-sponsored students and two master’s program students who had immersed themselves in Japanese language and culture five days a week for four months in the Intensive Japanese Course. Joining them were six GSEP students who had studied similar topics twice a week for an entire year. Together, the students represented seven countries ― Thailand, India, South Korea, Togo, France, Bolivia, and Vietnam.
Each speaker was free to choose the content of their presentations to demonstrate what they had learned during their studies. Topics ranged from the language, history, and culture of their home countries and hometowns to introductions of traditional events, comparisons of gastronomic culture, and explanations of the school systems in Japan and other nations. Many Tokyo Tech faculty, staff, and students dropped by to listen the presentations, including President Kazuya Masu, host faculty members, friends from the laboratory, and senior international students who had completed similar presentations in previous years.
Intensive Japanese Course presentations at Multi-Purpose Digital Hall
Presentations by GSEP students at Media Hall
Other visitors were also present. Approximately 130 fifth and sixth graders, and their teachers, from Senzokuike Elementary School joined the event. Tokyo Tech’s international students had visited the school recently to deepen international exchanges, and the youngsters happily returned the favor. Other listeners included four members of the Kanagawa Systematized Goodwill Guide Club (KSGG), a volunteer group that guided Tokyo Tech’s international students around the historical city of Kamakura as part of the Intensive Japanese Course.
President Masu (left) and KSGG members enjoying presentation
Masu sharing message with elementary school students and Tokyo Tech’s presenters
At the end of the event, Masu offered words of encouragement to the visiting elementary school students. Principal Satoshi Ito and a student representative of Senzokuike Elementary School replied by warmly thanking the Tokyo Tech community for the invitation to such a unique event.
Comments from participating international students
- This was such great fun. I learned a lot about Japanese vocabulary and sentence construction while preparing my presentation, and the whole thing was an excellent challenge to take on.
- Preparation for the presentation gave me an opportunity to understand Japanese elementary school students and the Japanese people in general.
- The elementary school students listened with interest, and that helped me relax during my presentation. The questions posed by the youngsters were really interesting.
- It was such a pleasure to meet all the elementary school students.
- All the children were so cute and kind to us.
Tokyo Tech’s Intensive Japanese Courses
Tokyo Tech’s Intensive Japanese Courses, held twice a year, are aimed mainly at Japanese government-sponsored international students looking to progress to graduate-level studies. Other students are also invited to join if capacity allows.
These courses aim to develop Japanese proficiency among beginner-level students who have just arrived in Japan. By the end of the course, each international student will have acquired sufficient language skills to make an oral presentation in basic Japanese. ILA’s Japanese Section functions as “a hub for meeting and learning” for students from different cultural backgrounds, and a safe place where international students can exchange information about life in Japan.
Encounters with Japanese culture are important components of the courses. International students visit places such as Kamakura City and Sona Area Tokyo, an experienced-based learning facility for disaster prevention. Intensive Japanese Course students also conduct active exchanges with elementary school students in Tokyo’s Ota City.
Global Scientists and Engineers Program (GSEP)
GSEP is an international, four-year Bachelor of Engineering degree program offered by the Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering. It allows qualified international students with little or no proficiency in the Japanese language to pursue an engineering degree at Tokyo Tech, as all required components are taught in English.
The Japanese language course for first-year GSEP students, designed for those with beginner-level Japanese ability or no prior experience in studying the language, aims to develop a certain level of proficiency among students. The course focuses on speaking and listening to boost communicative competence so that students attain an understanding of basic Japanese used in daily life.