The Activities of the Japan Foundation

Language: Japanese-Language Education Overseas
Enhancing Overseas Japanese-Language Teaching Methods and Proficiency Assessments of Japanese-Language Learners

To promote the Japanese language, the Japan Foundation provided new teaching methods and learning materials and implemented the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) and the Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese (JFT-Basic) for Japanese-language learners as well as conducted research related to Japanese-language education.

Disseminating Information about Japanese-Language Teaching Methods and Providing Learning Materials

The JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education is a framework developed by the Japan Foundation for considering ways to learn and teach the Japanese language and make evaluations based on the concept of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). We enhanced Marugoto: Japanese Language and Culture and Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan, teaching materials based on the JF Standard. For Marugoto, we expanded the coursebook levels published in China and Egypt and provided supporting teaching materials in multiple languages on the Marugoto website, while we enriched the contents of Irodori. We also launched a new website designed for utilizing the Japanese-language learning program ひきだすにほんご Activate Your Japanese! (FY2021, co-produced with NHK Educational) as a teaching tool. This website offers segmented videos of the program by section, multilingual subtitles, downloadable materials and web-exclusive videos, all of which are useful for both classroom instruction and self-study.

Development and Operation of e-Learning

The number of annual participants of the Japanese-language learning platform JF Japanese e-Learning Minato reached approximately 143,000 people in 189 countries and regions. In response to an increasing demand for online education, we expanded our content offerings, including the addition of the Marugoto Japanese Online Course for pre-intermediate (A2B1) students. Additionally, we launched new online courses for Japanese-language teachers.

Top page of the Japanese-language learning platform JF Japanese e-Learning Minato showing a portion of the courses offered

Survey on Japanese-Language Education Abroad

To obtain an accurate picture of the current state of Japanese-language teaching around the world, the Japan Foundation has been conducting every 3 years a survey of overseas organizations offering Japanese-language courses. In addition to announcing the results of the survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in FY2021, various reports, statistical tables and a search engine for institutions offering Japanese-language education have been made publicly available on the Japan Foundation website. We conducted a survey on the implementation of online classes for the first time and confirmed that they were in place in over 60% of institutions worldwide.

Press conference on the results of the Survey on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 2021

Implementing Tests to Evaluate Japanese-Language Proficiency

Launched in 1984, the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is the world's largest-scale test measuring the Japanese-language skills of non-native speakers. In FY2022, the July test was newly held in Leicester (U.K.), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and Aguascalientes (Mexico) amid signs of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 268,000 people applied for the exam in 141 cities in 52 countries around the world and 215,000 took it. For the December test, Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand), Chisinau (Moldova), Vancouver (Canada), Monterey Bay (U.S.) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) were included for the first time, with 293,000 applicants from 193 cities in 81 countries and 241,000 test-takers.

Commenced in 2019, the Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese (JFT-Basic) is a computer-based test to measure the Japanese-language proficiency needed by foreign nationals about to reside in Japan mainly for work, to communicate in everyday life situations. In FY2022, the test was newly implemented in Bangladesh, and approximately 47,000 people (30,600 in FY2021) took the test in Japan and in 19 cities of 11 countries in Asia.

Japanese-Language Education Programs for Acceptance of Foreign Human Resources

The Japan Foundation promoted initiatives in nine Asian countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines to support the acquisition of Japanese-language proficiency by people aiming to live and work in Japan. We added five languages to the web-based Japanese-language teaching material Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan for a total of 16 languages, and the material was accessed approximately 2.98 million times this fiscal year. Meanwhile, for the Irodori Japanese Online Course, which was developed based on the same materials, we newly released Japanese and English versions of the starter (A1) course and eight language versions of the elementary 1 and elementary 2 (A2) courses. In various countries, Japanese-Language Specialists and Japanese for Life in Japan Coordinators introduced teaching materials and held seminars on how to teach.

25th Anniversary of the Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai

The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2022. For the ceremony, we invited Aleksandra Kovač, the Serbian Ambassador to Japan and a former participant in our training programs, to share her insights gained through the training.

In March 2023, we held a commemorative symposium online with the theme of supporting Japanese-language education to assist with the acceptance and coexistence of foreign workers in Japan. The aims were to introduce the Japan Foundation's resources, such as educational materials, and initiatives in various countries, and to consider their application for the support of Japanese-language education in Japan.

Participants of the Training for Foreign Service Officers and Public Officials with Ambassador Kovač (center)