Japanese universities are increasingly expected to design curricula that help students become “global human resources.” However, the programs and courses offered under the heading of “Global Human Resources Development Promotion” and supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) tend to negate not only the students’ individual values, but also their perspective on what being a “global human resource” means. In particular, many of these programs and courses underestimate or overlook what students are interested in, what kind of people they think they are, and what kind of lives they want to have. The purpose of this study is to examine how students can be motivated to grow into their ideal version of a global human resource, and then find out what they actually do to become one. We used the LEGO^® Serious Play^® Workshop to provide students with an opportunity to understand themselves, explore their interests, and define their aspirations when it comes to becoming a global human resource. Pre- and post-workshop questionnaires, as well as interviews conducted after the workshop, show rather clearly that self-understanding is the foundation they need to find motivation and take steps toward achieving their goals.

In our rapidly changing society, it is crucial for the education system to respond flexibly and appropriately in order to adapt to the changing social needs. Higher education needs to educate students to acquire the competencies they will need when they start to work such as critical thinking, and collaborative problem solving skills. This paper reports on an educational program conducted in Japan and Korea in 2014 to cultivate “Global-Local-Mind” and practical skills. It also evaluates the program and learning progress of students based on a comparison of students’ self-evaluations. The self-evaluations concerned four competencies in total; three competencies were based on “Fundamental Competencies for Working Persons” (METI, 2006), to which we added practical language skills. Self-evaluations were conducted with eight participants three times: at the beginning (pre), immediately after the overseas training (middle), and at the end of the program (post). The result shows improvement at each learning stage. It is assumed most of students recognized their changes after the overseas training where they were required to use four competencies. The results also indicate that it is essential for the program to offer students opportunities to use their acquired skills continuously.

The purpose of this study is to explain the activities of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) which create global human resource development. The JOCV is a part of Official Development Assistance and is in the overseas volunteers dispatch system. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is in charge of dispatching JOCV. The Cooperation is provided in ten fields: planning and administration, commerce and tourism, public and non-profitable utilities, human resources, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, health and medical care, industrial production, social welfare, and energy. More than 120 occupations are involved in all. Approximately 40,000 JOCV have been dispatched to 88 countries worldwide. The volunteers are assigned to developing countries for a period of two years, carrying out a “Plan, Do, See” course of action. Living and working with the local people, they participate in cooperative activities and gain competencies in management, negotiation and problem solving in their work and personal relations. Furthermore, as their language skills improve, their outlook broadens with their proficient communication ability. The JO CV’s activities in developing countries are very effective at creating a globally competent person. JO CV’s activities will contribute to develop global human resources in the future.

This paper will highlight typical conflicts that arise with foreign employees who have graduated from Japanese universities, then consider what kinds of support might alleviate these situations. Individual and group interviews were conducted with foreign employees and Japanese supervisors. The study found that: (1) Foreign employees and companies have different understandings of on-the-job training. (2) Japanese supervisors do not fully realize how different foreign employees’ perceptions are. (3) Proposals were implemented that benefitted both foreign employees and Japanese supervisors. Relations between foreign employees and Japanese supervisors can be improved as follows: First, employers need a process to help them consciously realize what they typically take for granted. Second, foreign employees can benefit from training for how to communicate not by directly addressing a conflict, but rather, by making suggestions that will benefit both sides.

In this paper, the author has described how studying abroad affects graduate school students who belong to the engineering/science field. By using Personal Attitude Construct and interviews, the author discovered that the students’ minds changed from pre-departure, during and post study abroad from their own perspectives. The results showed that throughout the program, participants improved their communication skills, deepened their cross-cultural understanding and expanded their network and perception. With these results, the author concluded that the short term study abroad will be beneficial for the students in becoming global human resources in the future.

Based on improper interpretations (or translations) made by students who major in English, this paper investigates the cause of the interpretive errors and offers a solution for it from the perspective of (English) Linguistics. We will deal with various kinds of negative expressions in English below. This article points out that the students often oversimplify their meanings and tend to unify those phrases into one simple form. More specifically, they only produce -nai , which is a typical negative morpheme in Japanese. The author makes note about this situation, stating that even English major students are not familiar with the gradation of negative words, the meanings, intentions of the word and construction choices. This report insists that it is necessary to incorporate the knowledge on the lexicon and constructions from (English) Linguistics into Interpreter Education for the students to make accurate interpretations.

In this paper, one of the pedagogical practices for international education in the Web 2.0 generation called COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) is introduced. Using various SNS (Social Network Services) and other ICT (Information and Communication Technology) tools, two or more classes across oceans and continents communicate, most popularly in English, and work on a collaborative project such as a research presentation or a project together. The paper points out some of the critical aspects for this pedagogy to be effective for Japanese local students, in order to cultivate their intercultural competency and stimulate their motivation to study abroad in the near future.