The increasingly borderless nature of the world is giving rise to a multitude of communities that require numerous ethnicities and different cultures to coexist. Considering ways to ease communication between different cultural backgrounds is a challenging but important issue that human beings must confront for the future.
Within multicultural societies, English plays a significant role as a common language to facilitate basic communication between people of different backgrounds. However, to enable Japanese to relativize distinct cultures and to enhance their thoughtful communication between people, certain elements must be in place. These include a command of foreign languages, but also a full mastery of the Japanese language, which underpins the foundation of our thinking.
The College of Intercultural Communication was established to train students to meet the demands of this new age. The College mission rests on two pillars: developing a command of several foreign languages, and learning about the cultural phenomena surrounding languages and language education. Its objective is to foster students capable of resolving problems from multiple perspectives and by employing flexible cogitative abilities.
Understanding not just English, but many foreign languages and their concomitant cultures, and possessing an open mind are all essential for promoting cross-cultural exchange. For this reason, the College of Intercultural Communication develops in students a command of two foreign languages by requiring them to study English but also concentrate on a second foreign language: German, French, Spanish, Chinese, or Korean.
Understanding one's own cultural heritage is a prerequisite for understanding multicultural societies. Stated in another way, it is important that students develop a deep understanding and awareness of the Japanese language and culture. In this College, students study the Japanese language and learn its proper usage so that they may cultivate the ability to express themselves accurately and think logically.
Using their command of two foreign languages as a foundation, students engage in specialized studies of the languages, as well as the cultures and societies which form their background. The curriculum also addresses questions regarding how human beings acquire language, a fundamental component of cultural development, and helps students to acquire language teaching methods from a variety of different perspectives.
The College of Intercultural Communication, in partnership with the Language Education Courses in the General Curriculum, developed for all of the Colleges has developed a unique range of language courses. Intensive classes are provided for first year students, who then advance onto practical classes in their second year.
The Department offers a six-students-per-class system for English classes within the required Courses for first-year students that focus on their communication ability. In this way, students can engage in intimate, spirited discussions. The communication skills courses from the students’ second year onward maintain small-class size (approximately ten students) to allow instructors to direct their attention to individual students.
Among its required courses, the Department has established courses and programs, that conduct a variety of projects involving exchange with foreign students studying abroad at Rikkyo University. Students deepen their mutual understanding of one another by spending time together with students from abroad to appreciate variations in values and ways of thinking. Furthermore, the Department has adopted a system whereby students study abroad for one semester in the second half of their sophomore year. Students decide upon a language and destination for studying abroad in their first year from among the six language programs: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean. The College then works to improve their language ability through its own unique language curriculum. Opportunities for practical learning, including settings outside the classroom, allow students the chance to further their language development and intercultural and interpersonal understanding,.
Giving students the opportunity to carefully deliberate on themes that they personally select is necessary to foster citizens with the strength to contribute to a multicultural society. For this reason, students in their third- and fourth-year are requested to take specialized seminars and graduation research projects. Through the task of deeply researching their individually selected themes and compiling the results into a unified format, the students are able to take ownership of their studies, with instructors providing individualized support along the way.
