HSC Japanese in Context study guide

Japanese in Context is a New South Wales HSC course and external examination for senior secondary students who already have substantial background in Japanese - typically heritage speakers, returnees from schooling in Japan, or students who have lived in a Japanese-speaking environment. Rather than building the language from scratch, it develops advanced comprehension and production across the four macroskills, with assessment in listening, reading and writing, and a strong emphasis on using Japanese appropriately across social and cultural contexts. Candidates study contemporary themes such as personal identity, relationships, community, work, leisure and the Japanese-speaking world, and learn to shift register between polite, casual and formal styles, to understand unscripted speech, and to write extended texts for real purposes. Preparation should be steady and active: read authentic materials such as news articles, opinion pieces and short fiction; listen to podcasts, interviews and drama without subtitles and practise note-taking; write regularly in different text types and have someone check register and kanji accuracy. The HSC Japanese in Context study guide has 3 sections and about 865 words.