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Japanese Language and Culture Course Requirements
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The AP Program unequivocally supports the principle that each individual school must develop its own curriculum for courses labeled "AP." Rather than mandating any one curriculum for AP courses, the AP Course Audit instead provides each AP teacher with a set of expectations that college and secondary school faculty nationwide have established for college-level courses. AP teachers are encouraged to develop or maintain their own curriculum that either includes or exceeds each of these expectations; such courses will be authorized to use the "AP" designation. Credit for the success of AP courses belongs to the individual schools and teachers that create powerful, locally designed AP curricula.
The AP Japanese Language and Culture course should be designed by your school to provide students with a learning experience equivalent to that of a college course that develops students' proficiencies throughout the Intermediate Mid to Intermediate Low range of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Your course should be designed to support students as they develop the productive, receptive, and cultural skills necessary to communicate with and understand native speakers and writers of Japanese.
Students enrolling in AP Japanese Language and Culture are typically in their fourth or fifth year of language study, or have had equivalent experience with the language.
All students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The College Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.
High schools must ensure that the testing site offering this Internet-based exam provides the exam administration resources described in the AP Coordinator's Manual.
Requirements
To request authorization to label a course "AP," complete the following two steps:
- Complete and submit an AP Course Audit form, on which the teacher and principal attest that their course includes or exceeds the following curricular requirements delineated by college and university faculty.
- Submit an electronic copy of the course syllabus that demonstrates inclusion or improvement on the curricular requirements (see Syllabus Preparation Guidelines). If your course does not include one or more of the curricular requirements but merits designation as a college-level course, see Instructions for Submitting Materials for the process for describing alternate approaches to the course.
 Syllabus Preparation Guidelines
Instructions for Submitting Materials
Instructions on how to submit AP Course Audit materials via the Web will be posted on AP Central and mailed to principals in January 2007.
Curricular Requirements
- The teacher has read the most recent AP Japanese Language and Culture Course Description, available as a free download in May 2006 on the AP Japanese Language and Culture Course Home Page.
AP Japanese Language and Culture Course Home Page
- The course prepares students to demonstrate their level of Japanese proficiency across the three communicative modes: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational; at the Intermediate Mid to Intermediate Low range of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines; and as articulated in Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (Standards). (For Standards descriptions, see Standards Executive Summary. For Intermediate Mid and Intermediate Low proficiency descriptions, see ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.)
Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (.pdf/40KB)
ACTFL Performance Guidelines for K-12 Learners
- In addition to communication, the course also addresses the Standards' other four goals: cultural competence, connections to other school disciplines, comparisons between the target language and culture and those of the learners, and the use of the language within the broader communities beyond the traditional school environment.
- The teacher uses Japanese almost exclusively in class and encourages students to do likewise.
- The teacher ensures that the selected themes and topics are developmentally and intellectually appropriate for the students.
- The teacher chooses from among both conventional print and aural materials such as textbooks, audiovisual materials, and Web-based content designed for language learning. He or she also makes use of materials generally used by native Japanese speakers, such as print and Web-based texts; animated computer programs; and video-, CD-, and DVD-based products. The teacher scaffolds students' experiences with these texts, particularly those that would normally be considered beyond the grasp of high school students.
- The course teaches students to develop both communication and language-learning strategies.
- The teacher plans and implements structured cooperative learning activities to support ongoing and frequent interpersonal interaction, and employs a range of instructional strategies to meet the diverse needs of her or his learners.
- Formative and summative assessments are frequent, varied, and explicitly linked to the Standards' goal areas. Prior to assigning an assessment task, teachers share with their students the criteria against which their performances will be evaluated.
- The course provides students with frequent opportunities to conduct Web searches, word process, and e-mail in Japanese.
Resource Requirements
- The school ensures that each student has a copy of the texts utilized in the course for use inside and outside of the classroom, and has frequent access, during instruction, to a computer capable of inputting and displaying Japanese text.
- The school facilitates student use, outside of instructional time, of in-school or public library computers capable of inputting and displaying Japanese text.
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