Department of Japanese
Overview
The Department of Japanese Language was established in 1981.
As the only Japanese language department in universities in Pakistan, we have been teaching Japanese to tourist guides working in across the country, military personnel going to Japan for training, also recently, government officials who are preparing to study in Japan.
It also holds the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) twice a year, which can be said the only international test that is widely trusted in Japan.
In addition, we organize various events in cooperation with organizations with close ties to Japan and Pakistan, such as the Embassy of Japan in Pakistan and the Japanese School of Islamabad.
The ability to hold valuable exchange events with these kind of organizations is a major strength of us.
We hope to take advantage of this to provide our students with as much comprehensive knowledge and understanding of Japan as possible, not just language acquisition, and to increase the number of bridges between Japan and Pakistan for the next generation of Japanese-Pakistani relations.
Vision
Together, to continue to be a key link in the chain of Pakistan-Japan exchange for the future
Before the decision to start learning this particular language - Japanese, people must have been exposed and interested in Japan for various reasons, including Japanese society, culture, anime, and so on.
Also in reality, the number of JLPT test takers has been increasing 1.5 times every year since the creation of the bilateral MOU on employment in 2019, and this trend is expected to continue for some time.
Although the number of private Japanese language schools is increasing, they are all specialized for the JLPT exam, which is not based on the CEFR. As a result, an increase in the number of Japanese language learners without actual conversational ability.
The NUML Department of Japanese and our alumni must play a role as a bridge for true exchange between Pakistan and Japan by providing a valuable opportunity to learn not only comprehensive and applied Japanese language skills, but also to encompass the Japanese society and culture through language study.
Mission
To be an ideal environment for the providing of practical and overall Japanese language/culture experts
The majority of what students learn in class from textbooks is text-based, mainly grammatical matters. While speech and listening comprehension are essential for acquiring comprehensive Japanese language skills, materials that are presented in a passive classroom setting are not sufficient. We will foster an atmosphere of interaction so that both teachers and students will have opportunities to communicate with each other using Japanese as much as possible, both in class and outside of class, which itself should be a major advantage of studying here in NUML.
Cooperation among teachers to improve the quality of education
In order to increase the number of better Japanese language learners, we must be better educators.
Also, one person being an extremely good or popular teacher does not mean much in terms of improving the department as a whole or the students' abilities.
This is not only an issue limited to the NUML Department of Japanese, but improving the quality of Japanese language education itself is still a major issue in Pakistan.
We will actively exchange information and opinions with other faculty members, both native and non-native, not only on language abilities and teaching methods, but also on the "current" social situation and culture in Japan.
Continued analysis of the situation and results and efforts for improvement
As the Department of Japanese has many veteran faculty members, we are often assisted by their abundant and accurate empirical knowledge. In addition to these rules of thumb, we will add systematic data on numerically measurable learning effects, such as regular examinations on campus and external examinations including the JLPT, to objectively analyze the results and continuously discuss areas for improvement with all faculty members.