My Favorite Courses Abroad in Japan

During my semester abroad at Meiji Gakuin University I took 4 courses. Those courses were Intensive Japanese, Practical Japanese, Contemporary Japanese Society, and Japanese Popular Culture.

The first one, Intensive Japanese, had 5 levels to it, which were Beginner, 1, 2, 3, and 4. I had been taking Japanese for about a year and a half before I arrived in Japan, so after I took placement tests before and after I arrived, they placed me in the level 3 class. This meant that the whole class was taught in Japanese, and no English was ever used. Many of peers however had not taken Japanese before coming, so they were placed in the Beginner level classes, which I heard were very well taught and great introduction courses to learning Japanese. This course was two times a week for 3 hours a day. In this course I was able to strengthen my Japanese skills even further by learning intermediate Japanese grammar and speaking skills.

Because the class was all in Japanese, it quickly saw improvement as I had to force myself to speak and listen in Japanese as much as I could. My favorite part about this class was the Japanese student volunteer days. Every two weeks Japanese students would come into class and speak to us. It was a fantastic way to practice and meet Japanese students in a formal setting. This was by far my favorite class.

The second class was Practical Japanese. This class was similar to Intensive, but it was focused on reading and writing in Japanese. This was every Monday for 3 hours. There were levels to this course as well and I was placed in the Intermediate level. In this course we did a lot of writing and reading practice. We drafted essays and presentations in Japanese and had activities with Japanese students just like Intensive. This course was very engaging and improved my Japanese skills as well.

What I really liked about these courses was that the main work was done in the classroom. We did a lot of work in class, so the work outside of class was just going out of your way to use what we learned out in the real world with actual Japanese locals and students. That way, without doing much homework, improvement was possible.

The next course I took was Contemporary Japanese Society. To be honest, this was my least favorite class I took abroad. The course was very lecture heavy and was about a wide range of topics like Japanese work culture, religion, gender norms, and economics which might be a lot for some to grasp. The class was mostly listening to the teacher lecture about his premade slideshows, that he encouraged you to look at before each class. Every class there was a mini quiz on the slideshow, but no major projects expect for a final. Much of the information presented in class was interesting, but at times it was a lot to take in. If you want to learn about many distinct aspects of Japanese culture and society, then you can take this class.

My fourth and final class was Japanese Popular Culture. This class was like Contemporary Society; however, it was just narrowed down to early to modern-day day popular culture. We discussed movies, manga, anime, and music. I thought this class was interesting for many because many people came to Japan due to its popular culture becoming very mainstream in the past decade or so. The course was lecture heavy, however, there were many group activities and discussions, and Japanese students took the course as well. The final project was a group presentation about a certain aspect of Japanese popular culture, which encouraged you to go out and explore Japan which was a fun way to wrap up the class.

Those were all the courses that I took during my semester at Meiji Gakuin University. They were informational and the right amount of challenge during a study abroad experience which I appreciated. If you want to improve your Japanese skills, I highly recommend the Japanese language courses. 

Learn more about studying abroad in Japan here!

Blog by Brian Pekala, University of Denver
Semester in Japan - Meiji Gakuin University