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). 

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.

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.

An article on JSANZ in the E-Cube magazine
Masayoshi Ogino talked about the activities of JSANZ, the book Creating New Synergies and current situation of the Japanese language education in New Zealand. Read the article.

An article on Japanese language education in New Zealand
An article by two members of JSANZ, Masayoshi Ogino and Junji Kawai has been published on the website of the Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language, where the role and activities of JSANZ are featured. Read the article.

Masayoshi Ogino presented Mr Mitsuru Murase (the Consul and Counsellor, Consular Office of Japan, Christchurch) with “Creating New Synergies: Approaches of Tertiary Japanese Programmes in New Zealand”. A review of the book by Dr Michiko Kaneyasu (University of Colorado Boulder) has also been published in the journal, Japanese Language and Literature (April, 2017). 

AUT staff members at a gathering at the Consul General’s residence to express appreciation to Air NZ

 Air NZ, has generously given a return ticket to Japan as first prize for the JSANZ speech competition. JSANZ would like thank Mr Duncan Small, Air NZ Head of Govt and Industry Affairs, Cath O’Brien, Regulatory Affairs Manager, and Anna Burton Garcia, International Affairs Manager for this wonderfully generous gesture and for their ongoing and warm support of our students efforts to learn Japanese and to become true global citizens. JSANZ would also like to acknowledge Mr Yokoyama, the Consulate General of Japan, Auckland, and his staff , for their excellent networking on our behalf.

JSANZ has now been officially accepted as a member of the Japanese Language Education Global Network (GN). 

GN is an alliance that enables the exchange of information about Japanese language education around the world, with the aim of promoting international cooperation, practical activities for learning and teaching Japanese and international development of academic research. Currently, 10 countries and regions (US, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe) are affiliated with this Japanese language education alliance. This is a significant step for JSANZ.

The second National NZ Schools Japanese Trivia Championships was held on Friday 17 June.

The Auckland Regional winner and winner of the National Championships was Northcote College Team 1.