Japanese as a subject at Auckland Grammar School has a long history, having been taught here for more than thirty years.

Starting off as a relatively exotic subject with very small classes it later experienced a boom as the economic relationship with Japan became more significant. At the turn of the millennium Japanese had stabilised and remains a potentially important subject for our pupils at an international level.

The department has a solid level of both academic and practical expertise in the subject. All members have lived in Japan at sometime and bring a wealth of experience to their Japanese classes.

Auckland Grammar School has one of the biggest and most successful Japanese departments in New Zealand with more than 300 students. All students receive a sound foundation in the language and culture of Japan and our results in both NCEA and CIE qualifications are consistently excellent, making us one of the highest performing Japanese departments in the country. Our best students are sometimes able to gain direct entry to Stage 2 Japanese at university.

Studying Japanese language is very relevant to today's economy because of the growing Asia-Pacific trade in New Zealand. As well as this, tourism is fast becoming one of New Zealand's major industries with increasing numbers of Japanese visitors every year.

Auckland Grammar School supports an active brother school annual exchange with Taisei Gakuen High School in Fukuoka, Japan. Core to this exchange is the opportunity that AGS boys are able to visit and tour Japan. Several of our senior students have over the years been awarded scholarships to study for a year at Fukuoka Dai-Ichi High School. On completion of their year they are usually able to pass Level 2 of the prestigious Japanese proficiency test, and thereby gain direct entry to Stage 3 University Japanese.

Staff:

Tom Cain (Head of Department)
Dennis Helleur
Gordon Pope
James Yeh