Social Skills on the Formation of Personal Relations betweenInternational Students in Japan and the Japanese

This study investigated what kind of social skills international students staying in Japan learn and use throughout their stay which are significant fur funning relationships with Japanese. Informants were international students who have been staying in Japan for at least two years. Semi-structured interviews were carried out on 12 students from various countries. These interview responses were analyzed by using the KJ method and contenr analysis. The analysis revealed three major categories of specific Japanese skills: politeness, especially toward their proffessors; keeping harmony instead of insisting their opinions all the time; and steps for closeness, which means to take time to be close to others. We also found that they switched behaviors when selecting the appropriate acquired social skill and changed levels of using social skills depending on the context and people with whom they interacted.