The Council of Europe’s 2001 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has shown rapid global adoption, and now includes Japanese language education though it primarily aimed at alphabetically transcribed languages. It basically acknowledges that orthoepic competence relates to comprehension of characters yet does not indicate descriptors. Descriptors examining A1 and A2 levels, using altered techniques, have already been set. In this paper, I re-examine descriptors for levels B1 to C2, which have not yet been attempted, and combine them with the results for levels A1 and A2 to present descriptors for levels A1 to C2 in overall.

In order to address labor shortages, starting April 2019 the Japanese government introduced two new visa categories, and it can be expected that the growing number of foreign residents living and working in Japan will be increasing further in the foreseeable future. Within this context, the notion of Yasashii Nihongo or Simplified Japanese has been gaining attention over recent years. Originally designed as a tool for transmitting information in disaster-related situations and proposed for disaster mitigation purposes, at present it is being advocated as a means of communication to be used in non-disaster situations as well. The authors argue that ultimately Yasashii Nihongo for non-disaster situations may be just a means to an end. Seen from the perspective of “reasonable accommodation”, a concept prevalent in the domain of disability studies, they assert that by de facto creating a new linguistic category making it a tacit prerequisite to communicate in “Japanese only”, Yasashii Nihongo is but a concept geared towards the language majority (speakers using Japanese as their first language) and is potentially serving no other purpose than to alleviate the psychological burden of having to speak in a language other than Japanese, thus potentially leading to a new form of discrimination towards language minorities. Offering an alternative approach for improving multicultural communication aimed at establishing a communicative space based on openness, equality, and mutual respect for each other’s cultural, linguistic and ethnic identities, the authors propose the introduction of language education based on the notion of plurilingualism, as outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) by the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe’s 2001 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has shown rapid global adoption, and now includes Japanese language education though it primarily aimed at alphabetically transcribed languages. It basically acknowledges that orthoepic competence relates to comprehension of characters yet does not indicate descriptors. Descriptors examining A1 and A2 levels, using altered techniques, have already been set. In this paper, I re-examine descriptors for levels B1 to C2, which have not yet been attempted, and combine them with the results for levels A1 and A2 to present descriptors for levels A1 to C2 in overall.

In this paper, three types of Japanese online tests, and self-assessment questionnaires comprised of 13 descriptor categories, including one category on Japanese orthoepic competence, were issued to 15 Japanese language learners attending language schools in Japan. As a result, we confirmed a more than moderate positive correlation between the orthoepic competence descriptors and test scores, both concerning the individual scores on the three tests and the aggregate total of those scores.  Based on these test results, learners were categorized into different skill levels, such as novice, intermediate, and advanced. Learners who scored at the intermediate level with their grammar test or scored over 170 total points across all tests tended to evaluate themselves at a B-level or higher competency level.