National Policy for Nurses and "Easy Japanese"

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of "Easy Japanese" has come to be used in the context of discussing educational contents for learners of Japanese. This paper treats educational contents for nurse candidates, analyzing grammar and vocabulary based on Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Text, which has come to be seen as the criterion for taking the National Nursing Examination. The data for this analysis comes from the questions appearing in seven instances of the exam. Of 170 grammatical items for Level 2 that could appear one or more times on the test, at most fifteen actually appear. Sixty-five percent of nouns are Level 1, or not included in any level of the Proficiency Test, so Level 2 vocabulary is entirely inadequate. Thus it is necessary to hold grammatical contents to a minimum, and expand the vocabulary to be studied, rather than simply to aim at Level 2 proficiency. I further note that, if to the 1,233 nouns appearing in the compulsory questions of the nursing exam, a further 519 are added, 80% of the general and situational questions may be understood, while if 1,624 are added this proportion rises to 90%. This indicates the way forward in instructing students preparing for the exam.