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In this paper, we studied the use of omoimasu (思います) ‘I think’ and zonjimasu (存じます) ‘I think (honorifics)’ in business conversations. This is the result of an analysis of data collected through the survey of 50 people aged 30 to 59 working in Japan. Although zonjimasu is an honorific (humility) version of omoimasu, foreign Japanese learners often hesitate to use it as it can be regarded as incurring a bad impression depending on the situation. Therefore, there were concerns that learners tend to use omoimasu in all situations even when they have learned zonjimasu. The survey was designed to find out if there were situations where it would be easy for learners to use zonjimasu. As a result, several findings were unveiled: 1. Even in business situations such as a consultation, it is often more appropriate to use omoimasu than zonjimasu; 2. Many people think that it is not rude to use omoimasu in business situations; 3. Rather, the use of the humility expression zonjimasu sometimes makes the other person feel uncomfortable in some cases; 4. If one uses omoimasu in a situation where zonjimasu should be used, the respect degree would be weakened and thereby the other party would feel it is rude; and 5. It is more appropriate to use zonjimasu atin thean important part of the conversation part thatconsultation or conversation, or where at conversation the speaker wants to ensures tothey deliver the part of the conversation or consultation to the other person, rather than in considering the flow of the consultation or conversation.

Recently, designing and implementing the education based on learning outcomes has come to be essential for university educations. The reason why is that universities must elaborate explicitly of validity about the qualifications in university educations to the stakeholders, rather than that, the education paradigm has shifted from the conventional education to the outcomes-based education, i.e. from teacher-centered learning to students-centered learning. In this paper, a case of the Japan studies program of Universiti Malaya, where implemented National Qualifications Framework based on the learning outcome approach was examined. Meanwhile, we discuss how teachers can embrace Outcomes-Based Education approach, which is formulated by the government, and is focused on the students’ attainment of learning outcomes, moreover we suggested the bottom-up improvement. It was found from the case examined that a teacher was proactive and tried to embrace the "Malaysia Qualifications Framework" for university education in her way. The teacher had been interpreting the meaning of "MQF" while reading the local contexts; e.g. the course outcomes and the program outcomes of the Japan studies program. The teacher had been practicing and reflecting on her course following the Plan-Do-Check-Action cycle. Additionally, she provided feedback to the university. Although only one case was reported, this case implied to us that not only one teacher had given feedback to the university and the Ministry of Education in Malaysia but also many other teachers had done it. Therefore, the "MQF" for university education has been revised. This paper finally claims that teachers should: 1) design your own practices to interpret the outcomes in NQF by yourselves. 2) reflect on your own practices and discuss them with others to improve your practices. 3) not only improve your own practices but also innovate the outcomes in NQF and NQF itself.

This study aims to analyze how native speakers of Japanese express their opinions in discussions between native speakers and learners of Japanese, based on the occurrence tendency of utterance-final segments. The analysis focused on the two functions of elements included in utterance-final segments: the function to soften the utterance (mitigating function) and the function to actively engage the receiver (conative function). Firstly, for the overall characteristics, the analysis revealed that the utterance-final segments tended to include mitigating functional elements and conative functional elements rather than to be in the form of a simple declarative sentence. Each of these elements often appeared alone in utterance-final segments, while both the mitigating functional elements and the conative functional elements sometimes appeared together in a single utterance-final segment. Secondly, the analysis revealed that the form of "plain form" + to omou ‘(I)think that’ was used only in a small percentage of cases despite the use of the sentence pattern-to omou ‘(I)think that’ amounting to about one third of all expressions of opinion. In many cases, this sentence pattern tended to be used together with the mitigating function elements, such as -kana to omou and -to omou n desu kedo. In addition through an analysis of situations where these utterance-final segments were used the current study found that these utterance-final segments were used to avoid confrontation with the receiver, to soften and convey opposing opinions, and to confirm sharing of the utterance with the receiver. Taken together, these results suggest that native speakers of Japanese choose utterance-final segments of expressing their opinions on the basis of the context in order to maintain a smooth relationship with the receiver.