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Paper short abstract

This test is aimed at business people or students who have plurilingual/pluricultural competence, aiming to measure the functional language proficiency required in that world. The usefulness and validity of the task will be discussed in this presentation.

Paper long abstract

In recent years, securing talented human resources has become important in a global society. As international mobility of people in plurilingual/pluricultural world expands, especially in the business industry, development of a test to evaluate Japanese language proficiency as one of plurilingual/pluricultural competence is hoped especially in multilingual and multicultural environments. There is a great interest in measuring conversational ability with an emphasis on communication in Japanese language, and a test to measure practical conversational ability with validity and reliability is desired.

　　　Due to the nature of the performance test, a method of measuring conversational ability, no remarkable approach or research has been made on the development of a speaking test or measurement and evaluation of it. An existing test is the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages（ACTFL), but its practical use has not progressed.

　　　In this presentation, we will focus on the business of the target language use areas, give a progress report on the development process, the constructs to be measured, and the evaluation method, and aim for the future multilingual and multicultural society. We want to lead to highly valid test development.

　　　This test is aimed at business people who have plurilingual/pluricultural competence, and students who intend to enter the business world in the future, aiming to measure the functional language proficiency required in that world. Functional linguistic ability in this area means that you can understand the scene and situation from illustrations presented in the test, express it in Japanese that is socially and culturally appropriate as a professional, and further consider the current or future, and anticipate their ability to express their opinions and suggestions. Rather than assessing in terms of the stereotype of what a Japanese business person should say, using the linguistic knowledge possessed by people with plurilingual/pluricultural competence, the extent to which they can perform tasks including problem solving and critical thinking, which should be the main aim of the test.

We will discuss the usefulness and validity of the task in this presentation.

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Paper short abstract

This research has focused on the causes of negative evaluations and their re-evaluations and analyzed the sociocultural management toward business contact situations by examining the part-time work experiences of foreign students who have not yet become full-fledged employees.

Paper long abstract

Negative evaluations in contact situations resulting from differences in customs and values can possibly cause trouble in social interactions. An earlier study on sociocultural management processes in business contact situations analyzed the Japanese host side of Japanese companies operating overseas (Yoshikawa, 2017); the research revealed many 're-processes' that revised previous evaluations.

Study on the processes of reviewing evaluations from various standpoints can be applied to education in order to help Japanese language learners adapt to business contact situations. Thus, this research has focused on the causes of negative evaluations and their re-evaluations, and then analyzed the　sociocultural management toward business contact situations by examining the part-time work experiences of foreign students who have not yet become full-fledged employees.

The study surveyed 45 foreign student s from Asian nations who have lived in Japan for more than a year and have worked part-time along with Japanese workers for more than half a year. The research undertook surveys and interviews making inquiries centered on the evaluations of sociocultural problems encountered during their part-time work as well as their adjustments from a diachronic point of view. The analysis utilized the frameworks of language management (Neustupny,1995) and sociocultural management (Muraoka,2006). The study showed the following results.

1) More than half of the evaluations were negative.

2) Negative evaluations originated from the following factors.

A. The differences in the customs and values between their home countries and Japan

B. The differences in the Japanese norms between everyday scenes and business situations

C. Discrimination against non-Japanese　

3) About 20 percent of the negative evaluations were re-evaluated and turned to positive. Many of these occurred in factor A.

4)Many of the re-evaluation processes from negative to positive followed the method of "re-production" (Neustupny,1985), which evaluates one's experience using third persons' assessments and interpretations rather than based on their own knowledge.

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Paper short abstract

This action research examined teaching writing of resume in a business Japanese course for third-year undergraduate students in Italy. This aimed at enhancing students' employability through the process of interacting with their own thoughts and writing in their own Japanese.

Paper long abstract

This action research examined teaching writing of resume in a business Japanese course for third-year undergraduate students of the department of Asia and North Africa Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy. This aimed at enhancing students' employability while encouraging them to interact with their own thoughts and write in their own Japanese. Employability refers to the potential to discover a job that fits themselves as well as meeting the social needs and expectations throughout a lifetime, and employability is situated as an essential attitude for university students to increase the quality of life after graduation (the European Higher Education Area, 2006). Previous research pointed out, however, that European universities failed to offer the curriculums that improve the employability of Japanese majoring students (Conrad 2019). In light of this, I planned the resume activity as a mother tongue teacher specialist in the course. I instructed strategies to write an appealing resume for companies using a Japanese resume format (e.g., how to write personal information, educational background and work experiences); however, more emphasis was put on writing activities of motivation for applying and self-promotion in the resume. The students were required to write and revise their drafts repeatedly by incorporating the feedback on the drafts from the teacher and their classmates. This research examined how the students developed their writing through this revising process. The developments of the contents indicated that the students gradually gained insights both into themselves and into the business world. Individual interviews, which were conducted after the end of the course, showed that they gained self-confidence toward job hunting, and consequently they became more proactive in opportunities for employment (application for internships, events for job hunting on campus). Overall, this research attempted to suggest how a Japanese language course in university can contribute to enhancing the employability of students through writing activities; the effort to write in Japanese may help the students carefully reflect on their past experience and gain self-awareness for how they want to relate themselves and their study of Japanese to society.