A comparative analysis of the Japanese teaching methods in the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Limerick and Kanazawa University

摘要

The Japanese language has imposed its presence on the western world. As a result of this, an increasing number of third-level institutions have decided to incorporate the teaching of Japanese as part of a broad variety of degrees. However, learning Japanese as a foreign language is a relatively new phenomenon. As a consequence, the pedagogical methods used to teach the language in question is not extensively homogenous. This piece of research has been carried out using a comparative analysis of the pedagogical methods employed in three universities, namely, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the University of Limerick and Kanazawa University. Through conducting a quantitative questionnaire, the opinions of current and former students in the three universities were gathered. This allowed for a comparative analysis to be carried out on the relative strengths and weaknesses of teaching Japanese in each university. Moreover, this investigation demonstrates the importance of cultural referents when learning the language. In addition, this research brings to light the relevance of pedagogical translation in the Japanese language learning process. Furthermore, this study illuminates the significance of the required balance in language learning competences when studying Japanese, regardless of the final objective. In brief, the results demonstrate that overall students in the three universities felt that the teaching of Japanese could be improved