Courses

The Faculty's Japan Centre has offered its new Japanese program in the ANU Secondary College, the aim of which is to provide an enhanced learning experience for Year 11 and 12 students in ACT schools and colleges. The Japanese program has been newly added this year. The College now has courses in Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Conservation Biology and Japanese [photo: ANU Secondary College, Japanese Year 11 class].

Many thank to Barber-sensei and Honda-sensei, and our excellent students, the Japanese program has been very active and productive with 26 students (14 students in Year 11, and 12 in Year 12) in 2008. We now have our first graduations on Thursday, 25th of September. We congratulate Year 12 students on their successful completion of the program.

We hope that we will be able to continue developing many programs and activities like this Japanese program so as to further strengthen our ties with schools and colleges.

To meet the educational - indeed national - challenges of the 21st Century, the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific is transforming and modernising its undergraduate curriculum.

Not only will these changes firmly establish the Faculty of Asian Studies in setting the world standard in Asia-Pacific studies, but they also reflect ongoing transformation at the national and international level.

The FAQ includes information about the Faculty's new programs, current undergraduate degrees, new degrees, contextual majors, the Year in Asia program, Honours, and how to transfer.

Further information: http://www.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/data/FAS_Curriculum_FAQ.pdf

Australia has a high level of official engagement with the Pacific, yet most Australians know little about the region to its north and east. A new program could cure the nation of its Pacific blind spot.

Magellan christened the world's largest ocean 'Mare Pacificum' because of his smooth passage across it during the 16th century. The name makes one think of long, pristine beaches, fringed with palms, gently caressed by crystalline waves. It's the perfect mental space for a hammock, really.

But something of this languid air seems to have infected the attitudes of many Australians towards their neighbours. We love the coast, true, and many of us seek out Pacific proximity during summer holidays. But few of us know very much about that vast realm which begins out beyond the breakers, even though Australia has had strong official and strategic links to the Pacific region for over a century.

If certain academics at ANU have anything to do with it, this is about to change.

This year the University will begin offering Australia's first integrated Pacific Studies major for undergraduate students. Leading the program is Dr Katerina Teaiwa [pictured] from the Faculty of Asian Studies. Born and raised in Fiji, Teaiwa says she is often exasperated by Australian's blind spot for the Pacific and its peoples, even though many prominent sporting people and artists originate in the region. She says this apathy can even be found among people of Pacific Islander descent living in Australia.


[Full story in the ANU Reporter]

The Faculty's Southeast Asia Centre is offering a second-semester course in Sundanese. Sundanese is a regional language in Indonesia, the predominant language used in the western part of Java and presently the mother tongue of about 32 million people. The language is a distinctive language and once had its own script but nowadays is written in the Latin script. Sundanese is still the main language of the Sundanese, especially in the rural area. They consider Indonesian to be the language which they have to learn at school in addition to their mother tongue.

Sundanese has a mellifluous sound and is a language that is easy for a foreigner to learn. It is well suited to singing music such as the well-known Tembang Cianjuran, a vocal music. A rich heritage of culture is evident not only in the field of music but also in the performing arts which include gorgeous dances and wayang golek, puppet story-telling. The Sundanese literature prospered in olden times and continues to be produced even after the independence of The Republic of Indonesia. Novels, short stories and poems are still created and Sundanese magazines are also published.

Sundanese contains Malay and Javanese elements in its language: overlapping vocabularies; speech level similar to Javanese; common structure of sentences and so forth.

This course is designed for beginners. The focus will be on the practical aspect of the language and grammatical explanations will be provided. Please come and experience the rich world of the language and culture of the second biggest ethnic group in Indonesia.

(Note: This course is not for Degree credit.)

[photograph: Hatur nuhun. (Mikihiro Moriyama)]