Japanese Syllabus

Preamble

A Common Syllabus Framework

The Leaving Certificate Japanese syllabus is based on the common syllabus framework for the teaching and examining of French, German, Spanish and Italian.

The syllabus is "communicative" in the sense that it is based on the purposes to which learners are likely to want, need, or expect to put the knowledge and skills

they acquire in class, and in the sense that the objectives detailed in the syllabus are expressed in terms of language use. Teaching about the target language and culture also features together with the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Introduction

Syllabus Structure The two main components of the syllabus are its General Aims and a set of more specific Behavioural Objectives. These Behavioural Objectives, which derive from the General Aims, are subdivided into three components: Communicative Proficiency, Language Awareness, and Cultural Awareness. Finally, details of assessment are described under the heading Assessment. The syllabus layout is therefore as follows:

• General Aims
• Behavioural Objectives
• Communicative Proficiency
• Language Awareness
• Cultural Awareness
• Assessment.

The syllabus content is designed in units of General Activities/Themes. The Performance Targets are designed to help teachers and learners to work out schemes of work and to ensure that learners are clear about what is expected of them in relation to each General Theme/Activity. Assessment of students'performance will emphasise language andcommunication skills rather than the informationcontent of any particular section of the syllabus. Some of the communicative and linguistic skills, including the grammatical knowledge that students will need for the realisation of the Performance Targets are set out in Section 1 as Linguistic Skills.

Basic Communicative Proficiency

The objectives stated in section 1 are for the most part related to practical challenges that might be faced by the learner when operating in the target language community. A large proportion of the objectives in this section will also be relevant to activities and discussion likely to take place through the use of the target language in the classroom.

Language Awareness

The objectives listed under Language Awareness and Cultural Awareness are relevant to the communicative challenges faced both inside and outside the classroom and have an important role in the attainment of a reasonable level of communicative proficiency. They can also make a valuable contribution to the function of language learning in intercultural consciousness-raising.

Learner Autonomy

Many of the Performance Targets in the Language Awareness section of the syllabus are also aimed at promoting learner autonomy and enhancing learners' chances of success by giving them the skills to direct their own learning. It is obvious that it would be impossible to include in a syllabus all the words and structures that learners will meet and need when using the target language. Learners will need to develop communication strategies to cope with words and structures they have not previously met: not just using linguistic knowledge, but also context, background knowledge, and so on.

Cultural Awareness

Consciousness of cultural differences is essential to successful communication, and unfamiliarity with the social, political and historical reference points of the target language community on the part of a nonnative speaker can make effective communication impossible.

The intention that the Section 3 objectives should contribute to cultural and intercultural education generally is reflected in the fact that these objectives focus not only on the Japanese community but also on its relationship to Ireland and the Irish way of life, and in the fact that they refer not only to culturespecific issues, but also to issues which go beyond cultural differences.

Level Differentiation

Details relating to aspects of the examinations are described under the heading Assessment. The needs of students at Ordinary Level to communicate successfully within the target language community are the same as those at Higher Level. Therefore, the syllabus does not identify tasks that are considered to be inappropriate to students at Ordinary Level--all behavioural objectives are potentially important to students at both levels. The different approach to the two levels for assessment purposes is described under the heading Differentiation.

General Aims

The following general aims are proposed by this syllabus for the preparation of students for the Leaving Certificate in Japanese.

1. To foster in learners such communicative skills in the target language as will enable them to:

• take a full part in classroom activities conducted in the target language;
• participate in normal, everyday transactions and interactions, both spoken and written, both at home and abroad;
• extract information and derive enjoyment from the mass media and the more accessible literature of the target language community;
• consider as a realistic option the possibility of pursuing leisure activities, further study and/or career opportunities through the medium of the target language.

2. To give students a critical awareness of how meaning is organised and conveyed by the structures and vocabulary of the target language, and thus to contribute to their understanding of the workings of human language in general.

3. To help learners develop strategies for effective language learning.

4. To equip learners with a broad acquaintance with the cultural, social and political complexion of contexts in which the target language is a normal medium of communication and thus to help raise their awareness of cultural, social and political diversity generally.

1 . BEHAVIOURAL OBJECTIVES

BASIC COMMUNICATIVE PROFICIENCY

1.1 General Activity/Theme

Meeting and getting to know people and maintaining social relations

Performance Targets

• Greetings
• Giving and seeking personal details: name, address, nationality, telephone number
• Asking about and describing studies, work and interests
• Discussing family and home ­ one's own and others'
• Asking about and describing the nature of the region or locality in which someone lives
• Asking about and describing daily activities
• Introducing a third party
• Asking after someone
• Wishing someone well
• Congratulating someone
• Giving and receiving compliments
• Apologising

Linguistic Skills

• Developing an awareness of appropriateness of register
• Developing correct usage of question forms and appropriate replies
• Expressing ability

Structures and Grammar

1.2 General Activity/Theme

Managing a conversation

Performance Targets

• Starting a conversation
• Asking for repetition and clarification
• Confirming that something has been understood
• Expressing incomprehension
• Ending a conversation

Linguistic Skills

• Developing awareness of formulas to start and end conversations
• Qualifying levels of understanding

1.3 General Activity/Theme

Making plans and discussing future action

Performance Targets

• Familiarity with concept of future
• Mastering forms of expressing intention
• Expressing reasons
• Developing awareness of verb groups

Linguistic Skills

• Offering to do something
• Declaring intentions
• Inviting
• Accepting/refusing
• Making promises
• Making arrangements
• Cancelling and altering arrangements
• Asking about and describing future plans

Structures and Grammar

1.4 General Activity/Theme

Understanding, seeking and giving information about climate and weather

Performance Targets

• Describing the weather
• Comparing weather in different locations
• Combining adjectives/nouns

Linguistic Skills

• Enquiring about and describing the general weather pattern in a particular country, region or locality
• Using the media and other sources to find out what the weather is going to be like during a particular period
• Talking about the weather
• Enquiring whether particular activities (e.g. driving, skiing, sailing, travelling by air, hiking and swimming) are going to be possible under particular weather conditions

Structures and Grammar

1.5 General Activity/Theme

Coping with travel and transport

Performance Targets

• Giving and receiving information on location

Linguistic Skills

• Asking for directions
• Giving directions
• Reserving and claiming seats, couchettes or cabins on trains, buses, ships and planes
• Changing or cancelling reservations
• Confirming reservations
• Discussing and making decisions about itinerary detail
• Enquiring about facilities (washroom, amenities, refreshments)

Structures and Grammar

1.6 General Activity/Theme

Buying goods and services

Performance Targets

• Counting
• Telephone language
• Expressing approval and disapproval

Linguistic Skills

• Using the media, telephone services and other sources to find out where particular goods and services are available
• Changing money or cheques in banks and change offices
• Enquiring about methods of payment, i.e. whether travellers' cheques, credit cards are acceptable for purposes of payment
• Giving credit card details
• Ordering food in Japanese restaurants
• Negotiating purchase and hire
• Asking for discount, refund and replacement
• Praising and or complaining about the quality of goods and services

Structures and Grammar

1.7 General Activity/Theme

Dealing with emergencies

Performance Targets

• Giving an account of an event in the past
• Expressing urgency

Linguistic Skills

• Seeking help from people in the vicinity, including a police box
• Using the telephone to summon police, medical assistance fire service or emergency breakdown service
• Giving an account of a natural hazard (earthquake, accident, breakdown, theft or assault)
• Requesting that you be put in touch with your embassy

Structures and Grammar

1.8 General Activity/Theme

Requesting, facilitating or impeding a course of action

Performance Targets

• Giving and asking permission
• Giving and asking for advice
• Recognizing appropriate levels of language for prohibition
• Expressing ability and possibility

Linguistic Skills

• Making/refusing requests
• Asking for favours, help and / or advice
• Offering advice
• Making suggestions
• Seeking permission to do something
• Ordering or forbidding someone to do something
• Describing sickness

Structures and Grammar

1.9 General Activity/Theme

Understanding and expressing feelings and attitudes

Performance Targets

• Expressing how much you like/dislike something
• Using appropriate language to express likes and dislikes
• Using appropriate language to express feelings
• Describing an emotional state
• Differentiating plain and polite forms

Linguistic Skills

• Expressing hope
• Expressing pleasure
• Expressing likes and dislikes and preferences
• Expressing surprise
• Expressing regret
• Expressing disappointment
• Expressing horror and embarrassment
• Expressing belief and disbelief
• Expressing certainty and uncertainty
• Expressing gratitude

Structures and Grammar

1.10 General Activity/Theme

Engaging in discussion

Performance Targets

• Using the appropriate register in expressing opinions
• Using conjunctions to join sentences
• Using aizuchi appropriately
• Expressing disagreement appropriately

Linguistic Skills

• Expressing something as an opinion
• Asking for an opinion
• Indicating that something is true or untrue
• Denying
• Agreeing or disagreeing with someone's opinion
• Negotiating a compromise
• Ordering points in a discussion
• Concluding a discussion

Structures and Grammar

1.11 General Activity/Theme

Passing on messages

Performance Targets

• Giving and receiving something
• Using appropriate register on the phone

Linguistic Skills

• Offering to take a message
• Giving someone a message
• Indicating the degree of importance or urgency of a message
• Dealing with messages on answering machines

Structures and Grammar

2 . BEHAVIOURAL OBJECTIVES

LANGUAGE AWARENESS

2.1 General Activity/Theme

Learning about language from target language material

Performance Targets

• Understanding the main elements of target language material dealing with language related topics such as: ­ language as a social, regional and educational issue ­ changes in language and language use (new words, foreign influences, etc.)
• Exploring target language texts as sources of linguistic information and illustration (genre, context and register)

2.2 General Activity/Theme

Exploring meaning

Performance Targets

• Abstracting the main points from a spoken and written target language text
• Working out the implicit inferences of statements made in a spoken or written language
• Exploring the workings of the target language through such activities as: ­ Constructing coherent text through the re-arrangement of jumbled paragraphs/ clauses/phrases ­ Making pieces of meaningful and coherent target language text from gapped target language sentences

2.3 General Activity/Theme

Relating language to attitude

Performance Targets

• Recognising the general "tone" (ironic, angry, flippant etc) of a spoken or written target language text on the basis of its lexis, grammar and intonation.
• Identifying attitudes (e.g. critical, supportive, approving, disapproving) on the basis of a speaker's or writer's use of language

2.4 General Activity/Theme

Talking and writing about your experience of the target language

Performance Targets

• Discussing aspects of your experience of the target language, such as: ­ how long you have been learning it ­ where you have been learning it ­ the advantages of learning it in terms of its use in the world ­ what you find easy and difficult about it ­ what you like and dislike about the way you have been learning it
• Describing and commenting on any ways in which you have made your own personal contribution to the process of learning the target language
• Describing any ways in which learning Japanese has affected your present life (e.g. friendships, enjoyment of books, films, theatre, martial arts, attitude towards target language culture) and/or future prospects (e.g. travel, career possibilities, future language learning)

2.5 General Activity/Theme

Consulting reference materials (e.g. dictionaries and grammars) relating to the vocabulary and grammar of the target language

Performance Targets

• Using vocabulary and kanji correctly and appropriately with the help of dictionaries
• Coping with grammatical terminology relating to the target language
• Using target language forms correctly on the basis of explanations in grammars

3 . BEHAVIOURAL OBJECTIVES

CULTURAL AWARENESS

3.1 General Activity/Theme

Learning in the target language about the present-day culture associated with Japan and the Japanese

Performance Targets

• Understanding the main elements of target language material (written and aural) on contemporary aspects of target language community life such as the following:
  • everyday activities (shopping, getting to work, eating and drinking, etc)
  • education
  • customs and traditions
  • the arts and entertainment
  • the range and role of the mass media

3.2 General Activity/Theme

Reading extracts from modern texts of various kinds in the target language

Performance Targets

• Understanding the main elements of the surface meaning of a text in the target language
• Identifying meaning present but not overly expressed in such a text
• Appreciating the "tone" of such a text

3.3 General Activity/Theme

Describing and discussing everyday life in the target language community

Performance Targets

• Describing the similarities and contrasts between normal everyday life in Ireland and normal everyday life in Japan, with particular reference to, for example:
  • where and how people live (housing, furniture)
  • how people are educated
  • work and work culture
  • standard/cost of living and attendant consequences
  • holiday time and how people use it
  • how people spend their leisure hours generally
  • what transport facilities are available
  • what kinds of amenities people expect to have provided in their cities towns and villages
  • what people eat and drink, where and at what times
  • what kind of shops are available
  • what kinds of public services are available (e.g. schools, hospitals, gyms, swimming pools)
  • what aspects of the natural environment are prominently referred to in conversation and/or involved in work and leisure activities
  • festivals and celebrations
• Discussing the relative advantages of the Irish and Japanese ways of life in respect of the above areas of experience
• Identifying differences between Irish and Japanese community behaviour in everyday circumstances with the potential to occasion misunderstanding, embarrassment or offence
• Critically examining national stereotypes

3.4 General Activity/Theme

Understanding, describing and discussing aspects of the relations between the target language community and Ireland

Performance Targets

• Outlining in broad terms the principal links between Japan and Ireland (e.g. industry, culture, literary connections, tourism, sport, etc)
• Stating and defending personal opinions about the desirability of maintaining, developing or changing Ireland's links with Japan

3.5 General Activity/Theme

Understanding, describing and discussing in general terms issues that transcend cultural divisions

Performance Targets

• Discussing issues such as:
  • teenage culture
  • the generation gap
  • "entertainment"
  • environment and ecology
  • sexual and racial equality
  • ethnic minorities
  • health and lifestyle
  • changing perspectives regarding human relationships
  • marriage, the family, etc.
  • global alignments (e.g. Pacific Rim, European Union, etc)
  • the Third World
• Describing how such issues present themselves in Ireland and Japan

4. ASSESSMENT

Examination tasks will always be based on the syllabus content.

In any given year examiners will choose a broadly representative range of elements from the syllabus.

1. General Principles

1.1 Candidates should be prepared to meet, in various combinations, situations and tasks from the whole syllabus content.

1.2 The tasks encountered in the examination in the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing will have "real life" validity or will be preparatory for real tasks.

1.3 The language encountered in listening and reading tasks will be authentic where possible and of real use to learners.

1.4 Assessment in the four skills will be concerned primarily with the receipt and transmission.

2. Core Objectives

Candidates will be assessed on their ability to

(a) demonstrate an understanding of spoken Japanese in brief and more extended forms in a variety of registers and situations
(b) demonstrate an understanding of written Japanese in brief and more extended forms in a variety of registers
(c) express themselves with a relative degree of fluency and correctness in Japanese both in speech and in writing in order to describe, obtain and convey information, offer explanations, and express ideas, opinions and feelings.

3. Differentiation

This syllabus aims to cater to students with a wide range of Japanese language ability. Assessment will be at Ordinary and Higher levels. While the syllabus is the same for both levels, the performance targets will involve language use of varying degrees of complexity. Differentiation will be reflected in

(a) the complexity of language selected for assessment purposes at both levels (b) Mark allocation/Weighting of Skills In the ongoing language acquisition process, receptive skills (listening and reading) develop earlier and to a greater degree than do productive skills (speaking and writing). In differentiating between Ordinary and Higher Level assessment, the receptive skills will, taken together at Ordinary Level, be accorded a greater emphasis in terms of total available marks than will the corresponding skills at Higher Level than at Ordinary Level.

Mark Allocation

(c) Assessment Criteria These will take account of:
(i) ability to transfer meaning and
(ii) degrees of accuracy and appropriateness of language, including the range of vocabulary and structures used.

4. Format

The examination will assess a candidate's ability to:
(a) understand the spoken language
(b) understand the written language
(c) communicate in the spoken language
(d) communicate in the written language

Within each of these Assessment Objectives the language and examination tasks will arise from the subject content.

Oral Assessment

The oral component of assessment will consist of (a) general conversation, based on the syllabus content (b) role-play (c) development of theme of role-play through discussion (d) description of a picture and discussion of related themes/topics Twenty minutes will be allotted per candidate

Listening Comprehension

Candidates will be required to listen to a tape recording and to answer questions in English on what they have heard. They will be required to demonstrate an understanding of general information and specific details on a variety of aural stimuli arising from the subject content of the syllabus, including conversations overheard, public announcements, and extracts from radio and other sources.

Reading Comprehension

Candidates will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of, and extract relevant specific information from, such texts as public signs, menus, timetables, brochures, guides, letters, and (simplified) newspaper or magazine articles. Material at Higher level will place greater demands on candidates, requiring the candidates to explore various levels of meaning within a text.

Written Production

Tasks set will primarily require the candidate to use the target language for purposes of communication, such as responding to written/visual stimuli in an appropriate manner, giving and obtaining information, describing, relating, offering explanations, summarising, elaborating, etc.

Appendix:

List of required Kanji