- Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Lecture Hall
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
- Language: English/Japanese (without interpretation)
- Panelists:
- Urs Bucher, Ambassador, Embassy of Switzerland in Japan
- Kurokawa Kiyoshi, Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
- Chelsey Reid, Assistant Language Teacher, Takasaki Girls’ High School
- Joseph Shaules, Director, Japan Intercultural Institute
- Stephan Larus Stefansson, Ambassador, Embassy of the Republic of Iceland in Japan
- Moderator: Akashi Yasushi, Chairman, International House of Japan
Several decades have elapsed since the poor communicative skills of the Japanese in English were pointed out. Although various measures to deal with this problem have been taken in school education and on the business scene, substantial improvement is yet to be seen. With the help of leading panelists who are actively engaged in using English in their work as a first or second language, this symposium aims at rediscovering the importance of expressing one’s own opinion in English as a member of the global community and based upon one’s expertise without too much worrying about accent or other details.