The Importance of Educational Intervention for Intercultural Exchange between Foreign Students and Japanese : The New Project and Practice of the Colloquium of Intercultural Understanding in Campus and Outside

The purpose of this paper is to report the project and practice of the colloquium of intercultural understanding between foreign students and Japanese in Mie Universlty. It is necessary to do a colloqulum of intercultural understanding as an educational intervention because there are very few intercultural contacts in a campus community as well as outside the campus. The content of the colloqulum included four presentations made by foreign students and Japanese students. The evaluations of the presentations made by the foreign student participants included the following points：（1）expression of gratitude foreign students’ sharing of information and knowledge; （2） feeling of the importance of intercultural understanding; （3） high level of Japanese language ability on the part of the foreign students; (4) interest in the theme; and（5）feeling of empathy toward forelgn students: Japanese students' presentations were also evaluated and stressed the following: （1） feeling of empathy for a Japanese medical volunteer; （2） volunteering activities of the Japanese students' in Japan and abroad；（3）knowledge of intercultural issues；and（4）helpfulness of the international exchange activities. The study suggested that it was necessary to use interpreters, to increase the number of participants，to select disputable themes more carefully, and to improve the skill of the coordinator