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Online Talent Contest

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As you may have heard the Japan Foundation Sydney is running an online Talent Contest, J-Talent for the Oceania Region.

https://jpf.org.au/events/whats-your-j-talent/

Participants are encouraged to showcase their Japan-related talents, including Japanese language from the below four categories.

  • Japanese Language
  • Lifestyle
  • Traditional Arts and Culture
  • Pop Culture 

We invite you and your students to enter the contest, particularly the Japanese Language category and have fun with the Japanese Language for the chance to win some great prizes! Entries can be up to 2 minutes in length and individual, group and family entries are strongly encouraged.  

A fifth free topic (Your choice) has been added to the four topics to make it easier for everyone to enter. 

  • Welcome to my…(school, hometown, country, etc.)
  • Something I love
  • My discovery (realisations from daily life)
  • What I wonder about
  • -> Your choice

Please check the judging criteria for the contest here: https://jpf.org.au/jpf/jpfmedia/J-Talent-Judging-Criteria-1.pdf 

There are two points regarding the Japanese language, which may appear overwhelming however please be aware that the weighting of this criteria is much smaller than content and video. The focus is squarely on having fun with language, so please encourage all of your students to not be shy and have a try!

If you or your students don’t feel comfortable entering the language category, we warmly welcome you to enter one of the other categories (lifestyle, traditional arts and culture, pop culture) and show off your hidden Japan-related talents!

We have added a fun sample video (Japanese) of 30 seconds to help get some ideas flowing (however entries can be of up to 2 minutes). Please see it here: https://youtu.be/jEpfb28EPBo 

As mentioned in the guidelines, Japanese language audio should be accompanied by English subtitles for the enjoyment of all. To make this easier, we have added a ‘how-to’ tutorial video here:https://youtu.be/9ZKoRKxqwdsCaptions

We hope this helps inspire you and/or your students to enter this fun contest and unleash their #JTalent.

Submissions are being accepted until October 31, so there’s plenty of time to enter!

We can’t wait to see your fantastic entries!

For any questions, don’t hesitate to contact jtalent@jpf.org.au

Featured

Haiku Competition for Japanese scholars worldwide.

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This is a worldwide competition for Japanese scholars. The competition is to write a haiku poem with a short explanation.

Competition Closes 31 December 2020

http://www.nihonwosiru.jp/?fbclid=IwAR2Q5P7x3zdkWpe3FaqgBoV0EN6-3sv624jl_aAJQ348ZCLw7E9de78dgFw

Below is the information published on the website

「【俳句】コンテスト」

第四回「世界の日本語学習者《日本語作文コンクール》」

「俳句」は「五・七・五の17音」で綴つづる『世界で最も短い文学』です!

  1. 一・テーマ＝【「俳句1句」と、「30字前後の説明文（季節、場所など）」】
    　《【俳句】の「題」は自由（自然、社会、文化、日本・日本人、日本語学習など）》
    　《一人で3句まで、応募できます》（「季語」のない俳句も、応募できます）。
  2. 二・【応募資格】＝日本語を勉強・研究している外国籍の人は、誰でも応募できます。
  3. 三・【締め切り】＝2020年（令和2年）12月31日（木）必着
  4. 四・【応募方法】＝メール添付のみ　yuraumi@yahoo.co.jp（大森和夫）へ
    　　　「国籍、氏名、年齢、性別、学校名か職業、連絡先・メールアドレス」を明記。
    　　　（個人の応募でも、大学・日本語学校・日本語教室などからの応募も可）

参考資料　デジタル日本語教材「『日本』という国」（HP：http://www.nihonwosiru.jp/）
　　　　　◇「四章（自然）」の、四季の「季語」と「俳句」
　　　　　◇「八章（文学）」の「三節（俳句、、、）」の「一・松尾芭蕉。俳句の基礎知識」

【賞品】　　・一等賞＝　2人→
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　賞状＋《海外在住者・日本招待8日間。日本在住者・学習奨励金20万円》
　　　　　　・二等賞＝　5人→賞状＋学習奨励金・　5万円
　　　　　　・三等賞＝　15人→賞状＋学習奨励金・　3万円
　　　　　　・努力賞＝　30人→賞状＋学習奨励金・　1万円（賞状は、いずれもPDF送付）

【審査】
〇「一次審査」=大森和夫・大森弘子が一次審査を行い、「入賞候補・約100句」を選びます。
〇「二次審査・最終審査」=5人が「入賞候補の句」を採点、最終審査を経て順位を決定します。
　　◇二次審査員　　川村　恒明（元・文化庁長官。公財「日本ナショナルトラスト」副会長）
　　　　　　　　　　倉田　任子（「燎」同人）
　　　　　　　　　　小池美樹彦（日本語教師。「甲羅句会」同人）
　　　　　　　　　　小暮かつみ（「ひろそ火」同人）
　　　　　　　　　　津田　耕嗣（「東京都荒川区俳句連盟」元会員）　《五十音順。敬称略》
【発表】　2021年（令和3年）4月。　　　　　　　《表彰式は、5月以降の予定》
　　　　　ホームページ：国際交流研究所　http://www.nihonwosiru.jp/　で。

――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

　　　　　　主催＝大森和夫・大森弘子（190－0031　東京都立川市砂川町2－71－1－C621）
　　　　　　後援＝国際交流基金。朝日新聞社。
　　　　　　協力＝笈川幸司（中国在住・日本語教師）。段躍中（日本僑報社）。　　　　《敬称略》


	


	







	

		Events
		
JSANZ Speech Contest Winner – Video link included
			

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Congratulations to the winners of this year’s contest.





1st place    Alisha Elliott (IPU)　挑戦から得たもの
2nd place  Jordan Schulde (Victoria University of Wellington)　私の日本の経験
3rd place   Nicki Jackson (Ara Institute) 私が日本語を学ぶ本当の理由 





We would like to share the video of the JSANZ Speech Contest winner, Alisha Elliott from IPU.





https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmT6U-nVHiKFPNkPFsy_uSg
Hopefully this will encourage your students to continue studying Japanese.
















	


	





	

		Events
		
JSANZ Tertiary Japanese Language Speech Contest
			

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We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Speech Contest.





1st place    Alisha Elliot (IPU)　挑戦から得たもの





2nd place  Jordan Schulde (Victoria University of Wellington)　私の日本の経験





3rd place   Nicki Jackson (Ara Institute) 私が日本語を学ぶ本当の理由





Congratulations to all. The prize giving ceremony will be held at IPU on Saturday 28 September from 10-10:45am.  

	


	





	

		Featured
		
AUT welcomes  new Consul
			

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AUT Japanese department held a morning tea on 14 June to welcome the new Consul, Sukeno san to his post at the Consulate General of Japan, Auckland, and to farewell Hayasaka san at the end of his two year post. Hayasaka san will be sorely missed for all the work he has done for Japanese language education and we look forward to working with Sukeno san after he settles in to his new life in New Zealand.

	


	







	

		News
		
2018 JSANZ Speech Contest Winners
			

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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.

	


	





	

		News
		
JSANZ winning speech video
			

				Posted on 			

			


	

		

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.