Foreign Language « Keio Academy of New York

Foreign Language

Spanish　Elementary (Grades 11/12)

This course introduces the students to basic Spanish grammar and vocabulary. Students learn how to construct sentences and how to conjugate verbs. In addition, students develop skills for using the Spanish language in everyday life. Simple communication is emphasized through oral presentations, interviews, and hands-on projects. Students are introduced to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Spanish culture is introduced through exposure to texts, magazines, newspapers, music and movies.

Spanish　Intermediate (Grades 11/12)

This is an Intermediate Spanish Class. Students learn more complex grammatical structures, present tense, past tense, vocabulary, and writing paragraphs. This course stresses speaking and writing through oral presentations, group work projects, going Spanish places, and exposure to authentic objects, and pictures from foreign countries. Spanish Intermediate develops the study of culture through videos, reading foreign books, magazines, and newspapers.

Chinese　Elementary (Grades 11/12)
Chinese　Intermediate (Grades 11/12)

Today, a growing China has become more and more important in the world. Chinese may be related to your research, business or your career directly in the future. In addition, Japan and China have very deeply relations throughout their history. Furthermore, it is a fact that China has many problems now. So how to understand or partner with China? Certainly, the first step is to master the language.

While Chinese is approachable for Japanese students because of the similarity with Japanese kanji, Chinese is SVO languages, and like English, is without tense expressions of verbs which differ significantly from Japanese. Also the same kanji characters have subtle differences in the writing and usage between China and Japan. The course ‘Chinese Elementary’ and ‘Chinese Intermediary’ are designed for Japanese students and cover: pronunciation, grammar and conversation. This emphasis will set a foundation stably and quickly. Though the process of learning the language, every student will learn about the Chinese culture and consider aspects of the Chinese that inspire interest or curiosity, but at least you desired to understand. Four times in a week is thought to be high density for teaching, and if a student studies efficiently and works quickly with the teacher for two years, it should be possible to pass the HSK level 5 which also is the foreign student adoption standard of the most famous science and engineering university in China.

These are the goals and the starting point in our Chinese class. Every question from each student is a very good stimulus for the teacher; it will become the basic of research, because within the process of thinking and answering, we will reflect again about Chinese and Japanese and develop new insights. Two-way communication and a high degree of activity are aimed at in the Chinese classes.