Educators of Japanese studies from all tertiary Japanese programmes in New Zealand and representatives of other stakeholder groups gathered at Massey University, Palmerston North, on September 13 and 14 for a workshop ‘Tertiary Japanese Language Education in New Zealand – Are We Giving Generation Z What They Want?’ The workshop was co-hosted by the School of Humanities, Massey University, and JSANZ, and funded by the Japan Foundation, with support from the Sasakawa Fellowship Fund for Japanese Language Education. Former Ambassador to Japan and Chairman of the NZ Committee of the Japan NZ Business Council Mr Ian Kennedy gave the opening address.
The keynote address was delivered by Professor Chihiro Kinoshita Thomson, School of Humanities and Languages, UNSW Australia, the University of New South Wales, on the topic ‘Japanese Communities of Practice: Connecting Japanese language university students and the world beyond’. Professor Thomson also facilitated a lively and stimulating workshop on ‘Learner inclusive classroom activities: Towards promotion of learner autonomy and expression of learner agency’.
Participants came away brimming with fresh teaching strategies and keen to launch new projects to energise and advance Japanese language education in New Zealand.