Sunday 13 May 2018

Classes

Alright. Finally trying to get some final views of the classes I had down in writing. First, Japanese.

Japanese, Intermediate I, 8hrs

As I said before, this course took place twice a week, with two 90 min classes on both days. There is also a 4 hours/week version, in the case you stay there whole year. The course wasn't too demanding, and if you do well the practice handouts dealt out before every exam, you'll do fine. Some of the exam questions (if not all...) are straight from them. Also, during one of the classes we always had to do a short sakubun. If there was sakubun in the exam, the topic was one of those done in class before.
Having three different teachers for the course was quite nice, as they all had a bit different style. The long classes didn't feel quite that hard, thanks to that.

Kanji, intermediate I

In this class we went through about 15 kanji/week. This is the highest level kanji course offered in Kyodai. So, if it's kanji you're after, maybe this is not your place... (you might want to note that you do not get enough kanji here to compensate Japanese 3 in Helsinki Uni.) There were little tests in the beginning of every class, which were fine, but the end exam was pretty hard. It was similar to the other tests, but much longer, page after page... There were too parts, one where you just have to add the missing kanji to correct slots, and then the reading part - but when there are something like 75 kanji to read it gets tough. For me at least.


Listening


In addition to the actual Japanese class and one (and only one, you weren't allowed to take more) kanji class, you can choose from reading, listening, writing and conversation. I ended up taking listening, because the other classes collided with my KUINEP courses. We went through two listening exercises during each class. The books used were 毎日の聞きとり50日 、毎日の聞きとり plus40 and いつかどこかで, though luckily we didn't have to buy them ourselves.
In the exams we always had some texts we had listened before, and some new ones.

That's it for Japanese classes. I had 12 hours of them altogether... and then there's another 12 hours of the KUINEP courses, as you have to take at least 6 of them. So yes, if you're a Japanese major going into the KUINEP program, be prepared for lots of classes. Especially if you're there for only half a year.

The KUINEP classes I had:

Religion in Contemporary Society


When I first wrote about my classes I said that this was at the moment my favorite course. It still is. In fact, this is easily one of the very best courses I've ever had anywhere (and keep in mind I already have one master's degree, am now working for a new one). Of course, it's not really an Asian studies course, if that's your major, but even so I would rec it. First the lecturer always talked about the subject (like religion and technology, religion and science, religion and terrorism etc.), and after that we were divided into groups to discuss a given problem. There were different strategies for our discussions. At the end of the course we had two debates, and also had to write a short essay. These classes were quite relaxed but also thought-provoking, and I truly like the lecturer and his style to do this course.

Introduction to Classical Japanese Literature


This course somewhat divides opinions. I enjoyed it, others found it extremely boring. The greatest trouble I had was that the lecturer couldn't quite keep the schedule, and so we barely made it out of Heian period, though we were supposed to talk also about later literature. We read bits and pieces of poetry and longer texts, the lecturer analysed them quite thoroughly (too thoroughly at times), and also gave us small group exercises to discuss about. This course required an essay, 10 pages, but with double spacing. Seriously. Double. Spacing.

Introduction to Japanese linguistics

This was an interesting course, and also one of my favorites. The classes were lectures with no discussion (though of course you can make comments or ask questions). There was an exam at the end, and some minor homework questions for each time (though the lecturer stressed that he is not expecting "correct" answers from us, just some insights.) The class isn't that advanced - it is an introductory course, after all - so if you've already studied linguistics, you'll get lot's of repetition. There were interesting insights into Japanese language from the point of view of linguistics, though.

Introduction to Japanese Politics

As I said when I first wrote about the classes: I am not interested in politics. This did not change. It was so hard to try to keep my eyes open during the classes. Even so, this was a good class, I think. I did learn stuff. Not sure how much I remember, but that's surely not the lecturers fault. But I guess I do know now more about Japanese politics than of Finnish. xD If you are interested in politics at all, take this course.

Culture and Traditions in Japan

This was a nice enough course. Interesting tidbits about Japanese culture. There were group presentations, and a little bit of writing... Pretty easy class, in the end. Don't have that much to say about it, really.

Current Issues in Japan


This.... I'm sorry to say, this class I truly can't recommend. In fact, I'm afraid I have to recommend trying to avoid it. Here is what I said after the first class: The lecturer had a work trip or something, and so next two classes were cancelled. The first class was, maybe because of this, quite rushed and full of info, as if giving a peek into all matters that will be discussed during this course, or at least it feels like that.
Nope. It had nothing to with work trips. All lessons were like the first one.You get a huge pile of papers that have all kinds of graphs and statistics, and the teacher goes them through really fast. If I didn't really concentrate, I couldn't really understand what he was talking about. In fact, even when I did concentrate, most of the time I was just as lost.
The best part of this class were the student presentations. Other than that, what I learned I learned on my own, when I tried to figure the graphs and things out after class. (The ones he pointed out, saying they'd be in the exam.) Keep this as the last option. Or go take a look at the first class, and see if you feel  like you can deal with it.
...the exams (there were two) will be like the handouts. Lots of graphs you have to try to figure out.

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