ようこそ！as they say in Nihongo. 新しいウェッブサイトができました！We have been patiently waiting for the new & improved website to come out and here it is! “Oh boy, are we celebrating!”
We now have several pages to fill up regularly in addition to the usual “Schedule of Classes” and “Photo Gallery”. It is hoped that this Blog page will provide you guys a more PERSONAL glimpse to WHO we are, WHAT we offer and HOW you can “partake” of the “たのしい Nihongo learning experience” which our students often talk about .
WHO we are: The Nihongo Center Foundation (NCF) and The Philippine Institute of Japanese Language & Culture (PIJLC) are actually sister schools. NCF used to be known as JICC Nihongo Gakko of the Embassy of Japan, while PIJLC was established by the late Amb. Jose S. Laurel (Philippine ambassador to Japan from 1966 to 1972) in 1992. A common question from 1st time enrollees: in which school should I enroll?
PIJLC offers Intensive Nihongo Course, which is a Monday to Friday class from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM and runs for more or less 9 months. Now you know why it is called the INTENSIVE course J. The objective is to PASS the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 2 conducted worldwide by Japan Foundation every 1st Sunday of December. Applicants for the course should have passed, at least, JLPT Level 4 or its equivalent. Application starts as early as November while qualifying examinations and interviews are held in February of the following year. Classes start in mid-March .
Under the Kenjiro Ogata Scholarship, PIJLC awards a total of P120,000 to Intensive Nihongo Course students who excel during the first semester.
The rest of the courses offered at PIJLC are Advanced level courses, meaning one should be, at least, a JLPT Level 2 passer in order to qualify. These are: Translation Course, Advanced Business Japanese , JLPT 1-kyuu Review class, and for Japanese nationals, the Teacher – Training Course.
NCF, in the tradition of JICC Nihongo Gakko, accepts all those interested in learning the Japanese language regardless of creed or nationality. At present, we have students from Taiwan, Iran, Vietnam, and Japan. In the past, we had students from Jordan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Hongkong, Korea, Thailand, Dominican Republic, England, and mainland China.
NCF has courses for the young and the not so young, daytime and evening schedules, and Saturday classes for those who are busy.
Among the schools (universities included) offering Japanese language courses, NCF has the most varied and the most number of courses, namely, Regular Courses (reading and writing) from Elementary 1~ Elementary 4, Intermediate 1~
Intermediate 4, Advanced 2-kyuu Review, 3-kyuu review and Conversational Courses: Kaiwa 1, Kaiwa 2, Elementary Kaiwa, and Elementary Business Kaiwa. In addition Special Courses are also offered, viz., Nihongo for Caregivers, Survival Japanese, Tourism and Hotel Management Nihongo, Teacher-Training Course for Filipinos and Children’s Nihongo.
(Please refer to the Course Guidelines for the scope of each course/level)
NCF and PIJLC take pride in their “dedication to providing quality Nihongo education”. Periodic examinations are conducted to evaluate students’ Nihongo comprehension and students’ suggestions are always welcome. Moreover, innovative approaches to teaching are continuously developed.
And now for the FUN! FUN! part, we plan to share the Blog-writing with our students & teachers. They will be presented as “Blog Contributors” sharing their own Nihongo Learning Experience or Nihongo Teaching Episodes. So what are you waiting for? The Tanoshii Nihongo Learning Experience awaits YOU!