The Role of Japanese Language Education in a Society under the Influence of COVID-19: From the Perspective of Intercultural Communication Learning

This paper examines the role of language education in a divided society brought to light by the COVID-19 pandemic and explores what can be done in Japanese language education in Australia. Pandemic-induced border closures have made face-to-face cross-cultural exchanges with Japanese university students and study tours to Japan impossible. As a result, it has been incredibly difficult for Japanese language learners to learn from cross-cultural contact. The paper introduces some practical examples to compensate for these challenges while at the same time addressing the need to reconsider the role of language education in meeting the complex needs of a society that sees an increasing amount of division, all from the perspective of intercultural communication. Rather than setting native-like communicative competence as a goal, the paper illustrates a new role of Japanese language education, one which provides learners with an intercultural space that encourages the integration of self and others to transcend cultural differences and enables students to learn from each other based on a common cosmopolitan ideal.