Patrick Heinrich

Christian Galan

Japan is not only the oldest society in the world today, but also the oldest society to have ever existed. This aging trend, however, presents many challenges to contemporary Japan, as it permeates all areas of life, from the economy and welfare to social cohesion and population decline. Nobody is more affected by these changes than the young generation. This book studies Japanese youth in the aging society in detail. It analyses formative events and cultural reactions. Themes include employment, parenthood, sexuality, but also art, literature and language, thus demonstrating how the younger generation can provide insights into the future of Japanese society more generally. This book argues that the prolonged crisis resulted in a commonly shared destabilization of thoughts and attitudes and that this has shaped a new generation that is unlike any other in post-war Japan. Presenting an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the aging trend and what it implies for young Japanese, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, as well cultural anthropology and demography.

Formative Events and Cultural Reactions

Being Young in Super-Aging Japan

This is a fun and entertaining beginner level children's Japanese language book (9 years old and up) that is also appropriate for adults. I'm learning Japanese takes a light-hearted approach to the Japanese language by using fun anime–style manga characters to teach Japanese. However, it does not scrimp on content and covers everything from Japanese kanji, kana and grammar to Japanese culture and customs. The book starts out with the main characters, Emily, Nico and Teo sitting on the grass after school, minding their own business, when—unbelievable!—a giant talking fox dressed in a kimono appears. Explaining that he knows magic, speaks 3,000 languages and is respected as a sensei (master), he wonders if the three kids are ready to learn Japanese from him. During the next 128 amusing pages, the three friends learn to speak Japanese, read Japanese and write Japanese…along with taking breaks to try Japanese hot-spring baths, sumo wrestling, Zen meditation and more. Focusing on exactly what the 9 to 13-year-old learner wants to know, this book is carefully set up to allow them to learn Japanese independently, at their own speed, without an adult's help. Every page of I'm Learning Japanese! is in full color and the illustrated comic book-approach, with its speech bubbles and funny side remarks, makes the learning seem to fly. It gives preteens a fun grounding in the language and one that's accurate and practical. Nothing they learn here is "watered down" or will ever need to be unlearned, should they continue on with their Japanese language studies in school or later in life.

A Language Adventure for Young People

I'm Learning Japanese!

Qu'on ne s'y trompe pas, ce livre sur le Japon est aussi un livre sur nous. Un des partis pris de cet ouvrage est de rompre avec une vision globalisante et souvent mythique de l'" éducation japonaise ", voire de l'" éducation à la japonaise ", pour cerner au plus près la réalité et l'évolution d'un enseignement bien précis : celui de la lecture à l'école élémentaire. Pour chaque période considérée (de 1872 à nos jours), sont analysés les directives officielles, les manuels et les méthodes de même que les grandes lignes de la réflexion pédagogique, elle même replacée dans le contexte politique, culturel et idéologique du moment. Ce livre, qui oblige à revenir sur des idées fausses largement répandues, ouvre aussi sur l'avenir car il conduit à s'interroger sur le rapport entre des prescriptions multiples et changeantes concernant la pédagogie et le contexte politique qui les commande. Une question bien impertinente pour les pouvoirs en place, mais les questions politiquement incorrectes pourraient bien se révéler être des questions scientifiquement pertinentes. Toutes choses qui ne sont pas sans enseignement pour notre pays.

politique et éducation

L'enseignement de la lecture au Japon

Despite its monolingual self-image, Japan is multilingual and growing more so due to indigenous minority language revitalization and as an effect of migration. Besides Japan's autochthonous languages such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan languages, there are more than 75,000 immigrant children in the Japanese public education system alone who came to Japan in the 1980s and who speak more than a hundred different languages. Added to this growing linguistic diversity, the importance of English as the language of international communication in business and science especially is hotly debated. This book analyses how this linguistic diversity, and indeed recognition of this phenomenon, presents a wide range of sociolinguistic challenges and opportunities in fundamental institutions such as schools, in cultural patterns and in social behaviours and attitudes. This topic is an important one as Japan fights to re-establish itself in the new world order and will be of interest to all those who are concerned language change, language versus dialect, the effect of modern technology on language usage, and the way national and social problems are always reflected through the prism of language.

Christian Galan

About

Books

Join the club