Japan

The increasing reliance upon technological innovation, from pervasive digital computing in everyday smart phones and smart infrastructures to new forms of intelligent materials and pharmaceutical augmentation, is changing the nature of human-technology relationships. This course introduces the relationships among human-technology interface (HTI), human-machine interface (HMI), and human-computer interface (HCI), which have been rapidly developed during the past decade. The course teaches current design examples and theories of HTI as well as how they reflect the future of HTI.

This course provides individual research training for students in the Junior Year Engineering Program through the experience of belonging to a specific laboratory at Tohoku University. Students are assigned to a laboratory with the consent of the faculty member in charge. They participate in various group activities, including seminars, for the purposes of training in research methods and developing teamwork skills. The specific topic studied depends on the instructor in charge of the laboratory to which each student is assigned. The methods of assessment vary with the student's project and laboratory instructor. Students submit an abstract concerning the results of their individual research each semester and present the results near the end of the program.

This course analyzes the international security environment in Japan, including its new national security and defense policy as well as its challenges. The course is a combination of lectures and class discussion – the instructor provides lectures based on their extensive experience working for the Japanese government in the planning and implementation of national security and defense policy, particularly in the fields of legislation, policy framework, Japan-US Alliance, and international security cooperation. Students are required to prepare for each class session by reading the relevant part of the White Paper in advance.

A beginning dance class, this course teaches the basics of jazz dance and various ways to express music with one's body. This class requires a lot of movements based on the classical ballet technique. 

This is a multidisciplinary course on the economic, political, and social aspects of Asia-Japan relations. It covers both theoretical and practical aspects, such as economic policies; Japan's corporate strategies, and financial markets.
 

Each session is composed of two parts. The first part is based on the latest text written by Japanese scholars. The second part addresses related topics based on comprehensive texts written by Asian and Western scholars. Students are expected to write short comments after each class.  The course will feature Asian policy makers and academics as occasional guest speakers.

This course takes a critical and in-depth look at language teaching methodology in light of recent research findings in second language acquisition. Approaches and methods will be reviewed and focus will be placed on task-based language teaching (TBLT). Theoretical and pedagogical principles underlying TBLT will be discussed as background to the approach and students will explore means of implementing TBLT in their own classrooms. Finally, comparative studies examining the merits of TBLT versus other approaches and methods will be critically examined.

This course is designed for students learning Japanese for the first time. The course focuses on the acquisition of grammar and sentence patterns based on the textbook Elementary Japanese for Academic Purposes Vol.1 (Lesson 1 to 6). Students must understand hiragana before taking this course.

<Level V>
Target Students: Those who have partially completed intermediate level studies.
Course Goals: To develop understanding and command of the 200 important intermediate sentence patterns for further improvement of the four skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing. To master the 6,000 basic words and 1,000 to 1,200 basic Chinese characters.

<General 1-5>
Goal: To develop balanced, intermediate-level proficiency in reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
Contents: Learning the 100 important intermediate sentence patterns and vocabulary and improving reading comprehension with an upper intermediate level textbook. Developing command of intermediate Japanese through short sentence composition exercises. Mastering the points learnt at the intermediate level to proceed to the advanced level smoothly. Increasing vocabulary by learning both the words introduced in the textbook as well as additional related words.
Improving the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing by understanding the textbook and exchanging opinions on it.

This course aims to educate on the theories and concepts relevant to the field of stratification and inequality. The course covers the following topics:  intergenerational social mobility; educational inequality in comparative perspective; institutional arrangements in shaping educational inequality; education and labor market; the role of social capital and labor market; gender inequality, and racial and ethnic inequality.

While the history of Japan as a modern nation begins in the Meiji era, much of what we recognize as typical of 'modern life' in Japan begins in the Taisho period, or more generally in the 'interwar' period which extends into the early years of the Showa era. This course examines several aspects of this new 'modern life' with particular attention given to the new social roles, new gender roles, new lifestyles, and new forms of culture that emerged among the new middle class.

This course will be conducted as a seminar, but short 'mini lectures' will be given from time to time on several of these topics. Our main text will be 'House and Home in Modern Japan' by Jordon Sand; this book will serve as the basis for weekly class discussions. In addition, students will be assigned a book (on reserve in the library) to summarize (in small groups) in the form of a group presentation. Finally, students will be asked to produce an essay, based either on a topic related to our main textbook, or a topic related to the book they have been asked to summarize.