There are over 8,000 students learning Japanese at secondary level in the UK, the largest number in Europe.  The popularity of Japanese increases by the year and GCSE exam entries have more than doubled since 2000. Resources are scant and no UK designed GCSE textbooks exist. Grant support was given to the Japan Foundation London Language Centre’s major initiative to develop, CHIKARA, a unique on-line resource for teachers of Japanese in 260 schools and colleges across the UK.

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting recently received a small grant for its IJET Conference for professional Japanese-English translators and interpreters.

A number of grants have also been given to the British Association for Teaching Japanese (BATJ) towards its Annual Seminar and Conference and the mounting of  professional conferences throughout the UK, a recent one being on Japanese Applied Linguistics. Common problems faced by learners of Japanese were examined and ideas shared on new resources and latest teaching methodologies. The BATJ is the principal body for the encouragement and promotion of Japanese language education in the United Kingdom through teaching and research.

A BATJ conference.

An award from the Foundation enabled Oxford Brookes University to invite a speaker from Japan for a conference on e-learning and Japanese language education, the first of its kind in the UK. It aimed to update e-learning pedagogy and practice, create links between practitioners and disseminate good e-learning practice within Japanese language education. A recent award was also made to Cardiff University’s Japanese Studies Centre towards a seminar and conference on Japanese Language Learning and Acquisition.

The Foundation regularly gives grants to the Association for Language Learning’s Japanese Language Committee towards its annual Nihongo Cup Speech Contest for Secondary Schools and to the Committee for the annual Sir Peter Parker Awards for Spoken Japanese.

Participants in the 2008 Sir Peter Parker Speech Contest.