International Courses in English at Mie University And the Faculty Developrnent

The Japanese government has selected 13 universities as the first group of the 30 universities called the Global 13. They are the universities to be expected to join the world top universities. The large sums of budget are to be dispensed to these universities, but not to the rest of the universities. Mie University is one of them. Thus, Mie University is now destined to struggle to internationalize its education system on its own. The University renewed compulsory English language education so that all undergraduate students must pass 400 points in TOEIC. The Center for lnternational Education and Research (CIER) started in 2006 the lnternational Education Course in English and expanded it into 20 subjects per academic year by 2010. This article firstly examines and evaluates these attempts, Secondly, it takes up the issue of specialized courses in English which are yet missing in the faculties and graduate schools. In order to stimulate the faculty members, CIER organized a faculty development program inviting a lecturer from Nagoya University which was chosen as one of thc Globa1 13. Thc efforts of Nagoya university revealed in the FD certainly affected the participants. It is crucial for Mie University to establish clear guidelines for the internationalization of education and begin introducing probably a few graduate courses in which students can acquire degrees in English upon completion