University of Bucharest
FUKAZAWA Kaori

The University of Bucharest, where I have been dispatched, is a multi-disciplinary university with a history. Students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures study one language as their A specialization and another as their B specialization for three years to gain a bachelor’s degree in philology. The goal is to foster researchers, and so the curriculum doesn’t just cover the language—it also includes related subjects such as literature, history, cultural anthropology, and psychology. The Japanese specialization falls under the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures.

The main duties of Japanese-Language Specialists (hereinafter “Specialists”) in Romania are supporting Japanese-language education in the University of Bucharest and supporting Japanese-language education in Romania itself. From among these, I will introduce an event known as “Japan Night” that took place in November 2019, and the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (hereinafter the “JLPT”), which was held in December 2019.

The Student-led “Japan Night”

In Romania, November is known as “Japan Culture Month,” and Japanese film festivals and events related to Japan are held in various regions of Romania, led by the Embassy of Japan in Romania. To coincide with Japan Culture Month, the University of Bucharest set up Japan Culture Week from November 11–15, 2019 (see the Department’s blog for more details).

The Japanese-language specialization has 15 clubs, including Shodo (calligraphy), dance, chorus, indigo dyeing, and Furoshiki (traditional Japanese wrapping cloth), and some students are members of several clubs at once. During “Japan Night,” each club gave a stage presentation and held a workshop for visitors so they could experience Japanese culture—the clubs prepared and practiced repeatedly for this event, especially the leaders of each club.

These extracurricular activities are precious chances to see another side to the students than we normally see in class. I was impressed by the liveliness of all the students. As I stated at the start of this report, the students who specialize in the Japanese language don’t just study the Japanese language. If you look at their class time alone, there aren’t many hours for language-learning itself, but there are students who can give detailed explanations of Japanese history and literary works in Romanian or English, even if they aren't good at speaking in Japanese. This kind of event provides a place for students to tell visitors about their interests and what they have studied, and for the visitors to experience these—and I think that’s brilliant.

The entrance to the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bucharest

Helping to Run the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)

The day of the JLPT examination in December 2019 was also a public holiday in Romania. The JLPT is mainly held by the Asociatia Profesorilor de Limba Japoneza din Romania (the Romanian Japanese Teachers Association) with the cooperation of the Embassy, and Specialists assist with supervising the exam and doing a sound check, etc. Management is chiefly accomplished with the cooperation of Romanians and Japanese people who teach the Japanese language within the city of Bucharest, so it’s also an opportunity to meet people involved in Japanese-language education all at once, whether they teach in one of the various educational institutions or as an individual. On top of this, there were close to 500 people sitting the exam in 2019 in Romania; this number also included examinees from Moldova, Romania’s neighbor. Normally I only come into contact with students from the University of Bucharest—I was moved by the fact that there were so many people studying the Japanese language from different parts of Romania and from Moldova, with a variety of motivations, who were attempting the JLPT.

The number of people studying Japanese independently does not appear in the Survey Report on Japanese-Language Education Abroad (PDF: 5.25MB), carried out once every three years by the Japan Foundation. There is a sense that there is a certain number of these independent learners, in Romania and in other countries, but we do not specifically know how many there are. Consequently, I obtained the host’s permission and asked for the JLPT examinees’ cooperation in filling out a survey relating to Japanese-language learning, thinking it would help us to understand what is happening in reality. However, unfortunately, the number of responses wasn’t as high as I had hoped.

Finally, during the 2020 academic year (my second year here), I have started to move our work online due to the effects of COVID-19. I would like to take on the challenge and take advantage of what I can do online.

“Japan Night” was a great success