International Conversation Academy Ask Sapporo

International Conversation Academy Ask Sapporo teaches Japanese for employment in the Toyohira district. The campus formerly used the name Hokkaido AskGate Japanese Language School. Its long-term programmes are intended for graduates or prospective graduates of universities or junior colleges who want to seek work in Japan.

Japanese for the application and the workplace

Students work through two distinct stages of professional communication. The job-search component introduces Japanese recruitment practices, preparing a résumé and taking part in an interview. Classroom work also explores what happens after an appointment, including how Japanese companies communicate internally and how to discuss or negotiate an issue with someone outside the organisation. General Japanese and preparation for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test sit alongside the work-focused material.

Japanese society is another strand of the curriculum. Learners discuss social and cultural topics, compare practices with their own experiences and give presentations in Japanese. The longer track begins in April and lasts two years. An October start leads to an eighteen-month course with a higher initial Japanese requirement. That difference gives applicants who have already studied Japanese a shorter route into the same employment-focused environment. Both courses are based at the academy’s Toyohira campus in Sapporo.