News and Reports Archive

Part 3 in the series of CHIKARA update workshops took place on 18th and 19th February and was attended by 40 teachers of Japanese. This series of workshops provided advice and activities to help teachers improve their skill in making new resources, and also provided an insight into how the…

In the latest set of Talking Contemporary Japan classes, participants delved into the world of Japanese comedy-drama. The course usually comprises just one set of four classes but, such was its popularity, we were forced to offer a second course in order to satisfy demand. During the sessions, participants watched…

At the end of October over 40 Japanese teachers came to the Japan Foundation to learn about the CHIKARA resource for GCSE Japanese. Workshops were held on both the 27th and 28th of the month and were conducted by Yoko Udagawa, Chief Japanese Language Advisor at the Japan Foundation London…

On 16th October, over 80 teachers and local authority advisors attended the Japan Conference for Schools. Co-organised by the British Council, the Embassy of Japan, the Japan Foundation and the Japan Society, the event offered ideas for activities and projects that teachers can use to introduce Japan and Japanese into…

The new programme guidelines and application forms for grants to be made in the financial year 2010-11 have recently been added to our Head Office website here. Please don’t hesitate to contact this office with any enquiries you may have about your eligibility for our grant programmes.

This annual grant programme is available to those organising performing arts projects in the UK and other European countries. We are currently inviting applications for projects that will take place between 1 April 2010 and 30 June 2011. The deadline for applications is Friday 16 October 2009. For more information…

The Japan Foundation London is delighted to announce that Professor Arthur Stockwin will be awarded the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange for the year 2009. The award ceremony will take place on the 6th of October in Tokyo, Japan. For other awards to be made this…

At the end of July, 32 teachers from UK primary and secondary schools came to the Japan Foundation to attend some Japanese Language Refresher Courses. A three-day advanced course and a five-day intermediate course gave non-native teachers of Japanese the opportunity to brush up on their language skills and network…

June saw the latest instalment in our Talking Contemporary Japan series; this time entitled ‘Japan’s Past Meets the Present’. Every Thursday, advanced Japanese language learners were transported back through the centuries, taking in aspects of Nara, Heian and Edo period Japan and investigating the links between those eras and the…

Time travel, an African safari and Antarctic exploration were just some of the exciting topics dreamed up by participants at this year’s Nihongo Cup. Nineteen UK secondary school students gathered together at the Japanese Embassy to deliver their speeches, entirely in Japanese, to the attentive audience. The finalists had already…

On 12th June a StepOutNet visit was held at Roding Valley High School, Essex. Memi Kato, a Japanese-speaking volunteer, and Hiroko Tanaka, Language Advisor at the Japan Foundation, went to the school to give the students an introduction to the Japanese language and culture. They introduced many aspects of life…

On 28th and 29th May, seventeen Japanese-language teachers visited the Japan Foundation to take part in the first CHIKARA Update Workshop. CHIKARA is a set of resources for GCSE Japanese which were created by the Japan Foundation and Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation in 2008. The workshop aimed to give the…