Cultural Activities

To give engage students in the Hikone community and to give them a better understanding of Japanese culture, JCMU arranges numerous activities with instructors, groups and demonstrators from the local community and universities in Hikone. JCMU students are able to experience many aspects of Japanese culture and life through these programs.

Elementary School Visits

JCMU students go out in small groups to visit local elementary schools where they participate in activities like Dodge-ball, Fruit Basket and Jan-Ken-Pon. Additionally, the elementary students have the opportunity to engage JCMU participants in simple English conversation asking questions like "What's your favorite food?" and "where are you from?" These elementary school visits are an important part of building relationships between JCMU and Hikone and these interactions promote a unique cultural exchange and express JCMU's good will to the community as well as being a lot of fun. Take a look at this video clip taken at a musical performance given in honor of JCMU's visit.

Oral Presentations

In the final few weeks of the Japanese language course, students prepare and deliver a presentation in Japanese, demonstrating their language skills by incorporating what they have learned in class as well as what they have experienced from the previous weeks' activities. Local people with whom the students interacted during the Program and the students' respective host families are invited to the presentations.

Community Citizen Interviews

Students look beyond the Center as they interview the citizens of Hikone and other local communities, tourists at Hikone Castle, students at Shiga University and the University of Shiga Prefecture, members of the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Hikone and citizens of Shiga-cho on the other side of Lake Biwa. These activities promote the use of daily Japanese and encourage students to communicate and build relationships with their local Japanese hosts.

Cultural Presentations

Cultural presentations include hands-on experiential activities (directed by local Japanese experts and practitioners) in such Japanese skills and recreational pursuits as calligraphy, Koto playing, flower arrangements, and so forth. Through these activities, conducted mostly in Japanese with higher-level students translating but easily understood even by beginning language students because of their kinetic qualities, students are able to experience the language directly in a variety of cultural and recreational situations and to begin to attempt communication with "real" individual Japanese in a controlled setting.

Community Internships

Students have an opportunity to be involved in the local community with the JCMU community internships. While these internships are unpaid and not for credit, they give students insight on how the Japanese world works, a chance to make contacts within the community, look good on a resume and are fun. Community internships generally run once a week for four weeks to the entire semester.

Past Internship Examples

  • Hikone City Hall, International Affairs - Translate documents for foreign residents.

  • Elementary Schools - Teach English songs and American games to school children

  • Biwako Broadcasting Company (BBC), Hikone Branch - Wednesday live broadcasts, participate in short programs to introduce the student's view of Japanese life and JCMU

  • Hikone Higashi Senior High School, English Language Club - Assist native teachers in club activities to expose students to spoken English.

  • Kindergarten - Play with kids with English card games and songs.