Jonathan Bunt

Teaching:

• I teach Japanese on the BA Japanese Studies degree. My teaching includes parts of all units of the language programme and I primarily cover translation, grammar and reading.
• I teach about Japanese cinema and society (JAPA12222) and have also taught Japanese and Czechoslovak New Wave Cinema on LALC10001, Introduction to World Cinema
• I tutor on the MA in Translation Studies and I have recently part-supervised a PhD in Translation Studies and am currently part-supervising one in Japanese Studies with a colleague in Linguistics

Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Undergraduate Programme Director for Japanese Studies

I have a BA in English from Bristol University. After a PGCE (also at Bristol) I went to Japan on the JET Programme and worked in schools as a teaching assistant and for the local education authorities. I subsequently taught at colleges and University and stayed in Japan for 8 years, returning after 2 years to do an MA in TEFL at UEA Norwich after which I went back to Japan where I took a certificate as a teacher of Japanese as a foreign language.

I came to Manchester in 1997 and have been teaching Japanese and helping to develop Japanese Studies programmes since then, acting as first Head of Department for the new area of East Asian Studies. I have worked widely in teaching Japanese in the UK and beyond e.g.  as an external examiner at other institutions and as first vice-chair of the British Association for Teaching Japanese (BATJ). I have produced a dictionary and grammar of Japanese for learners (both published by OUP).

• My main research interest is in Japanese language teaching. I have a particular interest in dictionaries and reference grammars and the use of online learning environments and peer partnerships.
• Most recenty I have been awarded a Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO) grant for a project with colleagues at Kobe University (Richard Harrison and Masao Sanehira) and Hamburg University (Sei Miwa) for work on e-portfolios and translation. This work has involved students at Manchester, Kobe and elsewhere producing translations of Japanese fiction with a focus on the process and issues rather than just the product. Support by TIFO has enabled a number of conference and workshop visits and presentations. A second TIFO grant has just been awarded which will allow further expansion and development in 2018-19. 

• Another area of interest is in Japanese film and television drama and in the issues of the cultural context of language use and how this is addressed in subtitling and translating.
• I am also interested in Japanese cinema and society (especially the 1930s through to the 1960s) and I am able to assist with supervision of research in areas involving Japanese film, translation and linguistics