The North Asia CAPE will offer fully-funded scholarships for first-year students of Japanese language to experience first-hand the value of learning Japanese in country.
In 2018, 15 students will have the opportunity to travel to Ishikawa Prefecture to study Japanese language and culture. Learn more about the programme.
Are you eligible?
Students must be a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand.
Students must have taken at least one core course in Japanese at a first-year University level or JLPT N5 with grade above B+ or equivalent.
Available for travel between the 18th of November and the 1st December.
Applications open 30 June 2018 at northasiacape.org.nz. Please submit a completed application form and attach the relevant documents.
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2018 JSANZ Tertiary Japanese Language Speech Contest.
First place: Jee Hyun Cho (University of Auckland)
Second place: Gabrielle Gibb-Faumuina (University of Canterbury)
Third equal place: Vincent Nicoll-van Leeuwen (Ara Institute of Canterbury) / Vanessa Tubman (Massey University)
We would like to congratulate all of the participants. The judges were impressed with the quality of their speeches and had great difficulty selecting the winners. Well done! All of the participants will receive a certificate and summarised comments from the judges.
This year’s national champion Jee Hyun Cho will receive return air tickets to Japan. A huge thank you to Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Auckland INC ‘Nisui-Kai’ for supporting our event as the major sponsor. Jee’s winning speech video clip will be released soon through JSANZ Facebook and JSANZ website.
Gabrielle Gibb-Faumuina, Vincent Nicoll-van Leeuwen and Vanessa Tubman will receive Prezzy cards, sponsored by the Sasakawa Fellowship Fund for Japanese Language Education, New Zealand Association of Japanese Language Teachers and the Japan Foundation, who will also contribute to the cost of travel for students to the prize giving.
We hope the participants continue their Japanese learning journeys and wish them all the best for their future.
The winning speech video of the JSANZ Tertiary Japanese Language Speech Contest has been added to the JSANZ YouTube Channel along with the other winners since 2014. Watch and enjoy them! A big thank you to Jee Hyun Cho, the 2018 winner, for adding English subtitles so that people with no or little knowledge of Japanese can also understand.
General comment from a judge
It was wonderful to see how well all candidates demonstrated their topics, Japanese expressions and presentations to such a high standard, representing their tertiary institutions admirably. I even wondered how many Japanese native speakers could do this as well as our contestants did. Personally, the originalities of content about ‘dual citizenship’ and ‘love for their own cultures’ impressed me a lot. I would like to mention three things for your future presentations below.
Originality: Everyone’s speech topics are based on personal experiences, which are certainly ‘original’. But, those who related their personal experiences to social issues perhaps scored more highly in the content category as it arguably brings the audience in a deep way.
Presentations: A good principle for future speeches of this kind is that it is definitely preferable for contestants to have memorised their speeches. If you can perform it without any cue card, it gives a very good impression to the judges. Also, it is very important where you look at during a speech. If you look around and talk to everyone instead of focusing on the front audience, it could definitely improve your delivery to the audience.
Accent and intonation: Several contestants had great topics, accurate grammar and a wonderful presentation, but their pronunciation let them down a bit. I highly recommend that everyone to practice accent and intonation over and over when preparing their presentation, even having a native speaker drill you on this.
I hope that those suggestions might help your future learning of Japanese.
The Japan New Zealand Business Council Conference took place in Auckland from the 19 November.
JSANZ members were unable to attend this year but Dallas Nesbitt (JSANZ co-Vice-President) and Junji Kawai (JSANZ Treasurer) took advantage of the opportunity to network with one of our supporters from the JNZBC, Mr Tada (2nd from left in the photo) and the Managing Director of JTB New Zealand, Mr Nonaka (first on the left in the photo).
Japanese Ambassador’s Prize for high achieving Japanese language students
This year, two third-year Japanese students (2016), Bella Reid (Victoria University of Wellington) and Hayley Bartosh (Massey University), were awarded the Ambasador’s Prize for Japanese in a joint ceremony and luncheon at the Ambassador’s residence on 1 June. AVC International Stuart Morris, Penny Shino and Toshi Yamaguchi (Massey), and Head of School of Languages and Cultures Associate-Professor Sally Hi and Emerald King (VUW) also attended. The VUW prize was established by the Japanese Ambassador to New Zealand in 1980, His Excellency Mr Takahashi Oyamada, to mark the introduction of the course on Modern Japan. The Massey prize was established in 2013.
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2017 JSANZ Tertiary Japanese Language Speech Contest.
First place: Amanda Deacon (University of Canterbury)
Second place: Jack Hayes (University of Canterbury)
Third place: Corey Croker (University of Auckland)
We would like to congratulate all of the participants. The judges were impressed with the quality of their speeches and had great difficulty selecting the winners. Well done!
This year’s national champion Amanda Deacon will receive return air tickets to Japan. A huge thank you to Air New Zealand for supporting our event. Amanda’s winning speech video clip will be released soon through JSANZ Facebook and JSANZ website.
Jack Hayes and Corey Croker will receive Prezzy cards, sponsored by the Sasakawa Fellowship Fund for Japanese Language Education and the Japan Foundation.
We hope the participants continue their Japanese learning journeys and wish them all the best for their future.
For 2018, AUT is offering zero fees for new domestic full time students on this programme for one year or 1.5 years, part time. More on the scholarships can be found at Zero Fees Scholarships
The Master of Professional Language Studies offers graduates the opportunity to develop advanced professional skills in teaching an additional language, such as Japanese. The degree is for teachers who have a preliminary qualification and experience in language teaching.
If you would like to learn more about the course, you can click the links above or email the Programme Coordinator (clare.conway@aut.ac.nz ) and set up a time to have a chat.
The Massey University Japanese Speech Contest for Secondary School Students was held by the Japanese Programme of the School of Humanities on Friday 29 September on the Manawatu campus.
The event policy is not only to showcase great competitors but also to give opportunities to beginner level learners to give it a go. Nineteen local secondary school students competed with wonderful speeches and two Massey students who are currently studying 300-level Japanese came to support and encourage the young learners (they made awesome speech in Japanese as well!).
Over 50 people (secondary school students & teachers, Massey University students and staff, and parents) attended the event and all enjoyed listening to the high-quality speeches. The students used the opportunity effectively and we all saw a lot of potential for the future development of the Japanese language in New Zealand.
The judges were Dr Catherine Knight and Dr Yusuke Kuroda. The Japanese Programme of the School of Humanities truly appreciates the support from the Sasakawa Foundation, the Japan Foundation and Massey University.
Prize giving for the 2017 JSANZ Tertiary Japanese Language Contest at the University of Canterbury huge congratulations to Amanda Deacon (first place) and Jack Hayes (second place) in winning this competitive contest.
We hope that Amanda and Jack continue their Japanese learning journey with renewed motivation and enthusiasm. JSANZ would like to thank the College of Arts of the University of Canterbury, especially Pro-Vice-Chancellor Le Cocq and the Japanese programme for hosting this prize giving.
Many thanks to the Sasakawa Fellowship Fund for Japanese Language Education and the Japan Foundation for their generous financial support and to Air New Zealand for offering a return airfare from New Zealand to Japan for Amanda.
