From April 2025 through the end of December, two Romanian language courses—offered online and through an open academy format at the beginner level—were organized in partnership with the Shizuoka-Romania Friendship Association and Kobe University of Foreign Studies (KUFS). The courses were taught by Prof. Yusuke Sumi—linguist and director of the Japanese Cultural Center at UBB Cluj—following the method of Prof. Shingo Suzuki. The courses followed the structure of the Japanese academic year, which begins in April. Each course module lasted 8 months and consisted of 24 sessions/meetings. Each session/meeting lasted 90 minutes.
The project proposal was to launch online Romanian language courses for beginners at other institutions in different prefectures or regions of Japan, in order to build a critical mass of future students for the intermediate-advanced level. By organizing beginner-level online courses, the logic of delivering a complete educational pathway for learning a foreign language within an open academy system is currently being addressed, with the potential for further development by setting a precedent: beginner (online—these two courses in Shizuoka and Kobe) and intermediate-advanced (TUFS—online and in-person).
Until these two courses, the Romanian Cultural Institute had only supported the organization of intermediate-to-advanced Romanian language courses at TUFS in Japan. Next year, it is also planned to administer exams to certify the language skills acquired, thereby completing the teaching-learning-assessment cycle.
