E-learning to promote international development and co-operation in the Asian Region: Japanese language portal

Abstract

Japan is actively promoting an increasing number of foreign students into their higher education system from both developing and developed countries. Students, especially Government officials on study trips, miss out on the opportunity to learn the most from Japanese academia due to the language barrier. This paper outlines future trends in foreign student numbers and proposes a Japanese e-Government based e-learning 2.0 infrastructure system to support Japanese language acquisition. E-learning is a way to negotiate individuals' access limitations due to when-ever, where-ever and what-ever capabilities as well as low access cost. In this paper e-learning is defined as encompassing learning materials accessed through a network connection and e-learning 2.0 refers to user participation in creating contents. The results of the preliminary community consultation based in Japan at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University as well as the Philippines' office of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) show the diversity of the potential demand for Japanese language support and the potential users' imagination of how to meet this demand. Future applications of this research are to work with the Japanese Government to create the proposed e-learning infrastructure, which could in the future be a test site fore-learning applications.