News and Reports Archive

On 8th March 2013, 65 participants joined the Japan Conference for Schools, held at the Embassy of Japan in London. Co-organised by the Embassy of Japan, the Japan Foundation and the Japan Society, the event was an excellent opportunity for attendees to hear about how the new National Curriculum might…

On March 10th 2013 41 speakers of Japanese gave up their Sunday to come to the Japan Foundation London and help translate newspaper articles from the Ishinomaki Hibi Kodomo Shinbun; a newspaper created by the children that reports the current activities in their city. Ishinomaki is a city in Japan’s…

From February 12th – March 6th 2013, a total of 36 advanced Japanese language learners experienced a taste of professional Japanese interpreting, as part of the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Plus course. The course was led by Yoshiko Shimizu, a professional Japanese interpreter and translator, and former Course Director at the…

On March 2nd 2013, the Finals Day of the Eighth Japanese Speech Contest for University Students was held at Regent’s College London, showcasing ten individual speeches, along with five group presentations, by UK university students. The day began with the Category 2 finalists, all of whom are studying Japanese as…

On February 22nd 2013, 19 volunteers attended the first training day of 2013 for the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Taster for Schools (JTS) Programme, in which native and fluent Japanese speakers conduct free Japanese taster sessions in UK schools. After an overview for new volunteers about the programme itself, the participants heard…

Twenty-two participants came to the Japan Foundation London on February 14th for a very special, one-off Japanese Plus workshop on wa no iro – the colours of Japan – hosted by Yuko Hayasaka,  editor-in-chief at the Visual Design Institute. The workshop not only gave participants an insight into Japanese colours,…

On Saturday 23rd February 2013, Professor Michael Byram of Durham University and Professor Hideo Hosokawa of Waseda University held a lecture on Mediation, Interculturality & Citizenship Education: The significance and potential of Japanese Language Education at the Japan Foundation London, in association with British Association for Teaching Japanese as a…

In December 2012 the Department for Education conducted public consultations about language education at Key Stage 2 (Primary Schools, Year 3-6, children aged 7 to 11) and about Key Stage 4 (Secondary Schools Year 10-11, pupils aged 14-16). We would like to thank everyone who participated in these consultations and…

The Japan Foundation welcomed people from all over Europe on 6th-8th February 2013 as we hosted a meeting for a new European Commission Funded project called Lingu@netWork.  This project aims to build on the fantastic work of the Lingu@net World Wide website, which is a multilingual portal website for language…

On the 21st of January 2013, 40 teachers of Japanese braved the snow to come to come and learn more about ABC Awards. This event, co-organised by the Association for Language Learning (ALL), ABC Awards and the Japan Foundation, introduced the ABC Awards and gave teachers an idea of how…

Thursday 10th January saw the return of our annual Post-Graduate Workshop, organised in collaboration with the British Association of Japanese Studies (BAJS).  Responding to feedback received following last year’s event, this year’s workshop gave participants the opportunity to present their research and receive feedback from fellow PhD students and senior…

On Sunday December 9th, 34 manga fans came to the Japan Foundation for a workshop to learn new kinds of  Japanese language by reading and watching the internationally-acclaimed manga, Bleach.  The Japan Foundation’s Chief Language Advisor, Dr Seiji Fukushima, introduced different styles of speech for several different types of manga characters…