Message from the Director
Sei Kosugi
Established in April 2018, the Center for Multilingual Education oversees language instruction for the University of Osaka’s university-wide education programs. After its merger with the Osaka University of Foreign Studies in October 2007, the University of Osaka came to offer educational resources covering 27 languages, giving it one of the most robust language education systems among comprehensive universities in Japan.
The Center is organized into several dedicated units. The Language Education Development Office and the Curriculum Development Office handle the design, planning, and evaluation of our initiatives. Meanwhile, the Language Education Promotion Division—which comprises the English, Multilingual, and Japanese Language Education Promotion Sections—supervises university-wide language activities. Furthermore, language-specific committees put these newly developed curricula into practice, while the Language Learning Support Office provides extracurricular backing for students. By working in close coordination, these sections allow us to create and deliver innovative programs that fully leverage the university’s linguistic resources.
In 2019, the university launched a new curriculum built on three pillars: Liberal Arts, Academic Major, and Global Literacy. As a core institution for Global Literacy Education, the Center for Multilingual Education is tasked with both implementing and continuously refining the new language curriculum. Beyond this, we have been developing discipline-specific English programs for upper-year students and bolstering multilingual support systems. These efforts are part of a government-backed initiative started in 2019 aimed at establishing a global presence through “campus-life-integrated” language education. More recently, in 2024, the university was selected for the Multicultural Campus Project Toward Social Impact. Under this framework, the OU Multilingual Plaza—operated by the Language Learning Support Office in partnership with the Center for International Education and Exchange—serves as a cornerstone for a university-wide learning support network. It actively fosters autonomous language learning and extracurricular intercultural collaborative activities.
Today, humanity faces a complex web of global challenges—from ethnic and religious conflicts to widening economic disparities, migration crises, and environmental degradation. It is time for universities to make a truly meaningful contribution to the international community. To help build a better world, higher education must do more than simply foster English proficiency; we must cultivate graduates with the multilingual and multicultural competencies necessary to genuinely understand and connect with others. Nurturing such individuals is a vital mission for any 21st-century university.
In close cooperation with related academic departments, the Center for Multilingual Education remains committed to fostering this global awareness. Through comprehensive language instruction and multicultural learning environments that bring together students from diverse backgrounds, we will continue to respond to these global challenges.