Japan

This course is designed for beginners and covers basic Japanese grammar and vocabulary. Japanese language is practiced through listening, speaking, reading, and writing exercises. Students are expected to prepare for each class by memorizing words and reading the grammar notes, which takes approximately 40-60 min. 

This course highlights the development of Buddhist thought in Japan. Founded in India in the fifth century BCE, Buddhism was brought to Japan via China and Korea in the sixth century CE. Due to the influence of local structures and beliefs, Buddhism in Japan acquired some features which make it distinct from other forms of Buddhism in East and Southeast Asia. Concretely, this course examines the Buddhist teachings that had been influential in Japan at one time in the past; trace the interaction of Buddhism with other religions such as Shinto during the premodern period and shed light on the process of its development and transformation into the modern age.

Target Students: Those who have partially completed elementary level studies.
Course Goals: To master the grammatical expressions learnt at the elementary level, as well as to develop understanding and command of upper elementary and intermediate level grammar and to improve the four skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing. To master the 2,000 basic words and 500 basic Chinese characters.
Contents: Mastering the elementary level grammar and developing understanding and command of grammar using an upper elementary level textbook, followed by introduction of basic sentence patterns of the intermediate level using an intermediate level textbook. Improving the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing through various class activities designed for developing each skill. Mastering the 2,000 basic words and 500 basic Chinese characters.

Families are a fundamental unit in the organization of social life. Most people are born into one or later may create one of their own. This course is an introduction to the sociological study of marriage and family, its structures, and functions. The course explores the functions of family; changes in families over time and assesses how families both affect social life and are affected by it. There is an emphasis on sociological theory and research on marriage, kinship systems, components of mate selection, intimate relationships and parenting practices.

This course introduces how sociologists study families and along with them, topics that seem very personal, emotional and important to many of us - ideals about love, marriage, gender, parenthood, work, and human sexuality. It explores how wider social forces, including the state, the media, the workforce, race, class, and the sex/gender system, influence both our cultural assumptions about the marriage and family. A larger aim of this course is to integrate research, theory, and practical ideas so that people can pursue healthy and productive relationships. Students are expected to keep up with the readings and enhance the energy level of the classroom. This class is based on active student participation in class discussions.

This special lab course nurtures international students' creative competency by offering them opportunities for learning in communities of research practice. The student's supervisor arranges the research topic. Students give three oral presentations during the study period. In the presentations, students integrate ideas and analyses on laboratory results into creative and academically coherent work. FrontierLab program coordinators and supervisors attend and evaluate the final oral presentation.

The globalization of the translation industry has accelerated the use of specialized tools in response to constraints such as time, cost, consistency and teamwork. This class offers students an opportunity for hands-on exploration of a number of industry-leading applications widely used today by key players in the translation industry to equip students with knowledge about translation working environment; translation memory technology; translation project management; translation workflow management; translation quality management; machine translation, and so forth. By using them to complete both individual and collaborative translation tasks, you will gain an understanding of: (1) An overview of the localization industry in which the tools are used; (2) Their potential and limitations; (3) Methods of evaluating their performance, and (4) How translation quality are evaluated in the translation industry.

This course is designed for students at the advanced levels to acquire comprehensive Japanese language proficiency. The purpose of the course is to increase student knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and kanji and to improve their reading and writing ability through close-reading of textbooks. In addition, students will develop speech techniques necessary to participate in discussions and to explain content that they have understood.

This course focuses on issues, approaches, and analyses of existing research related to globalization in International Political Economy.

This course addresses the meaning, expression, material, and technique of Japanese visual art masterpieces.  It teaches the skills to appreciate fundamental and diverse characteristics of Japanese visual art from the ancient times to the contemporary.

<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.