The aim of the present paper is to report and discuss counseling activities for first year international sudents by the staff of Division of Counseling and Guidance, Japanese Language Center for International Students, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The Center provides preparatory education for a year including Japanese language teaching for students with scholarship by Japanese Ministry of Education to enter a national university in Japan next year. One thousand sixty-four items of counseling activities for the fifty-one students were reported and classified as (1) psychological counseling (24.9%), (2) consultation for school/dormitory life (19.3%), (3) guidance and orientation (16.1%), (4) advice for cross-cultural interaction (13.8%), (5) supply of skill and information (12.0%), (6) emotional support (8.5%), and (7) others (4.5%).
Cross-cultural counseling for first year students involves three important problems: understanding with limited linguistic communication, cultural difference between a counselor and a student, and developmental task of students in their course of life. As for methods of cross-cultural counseling for students with limited Japanese ability, peer counseling and group work with bilingual students as well as group counseling were found effective. The meaning of counseling activities for first year international students was discussed in the framework of Intervention Activity for Acculturation of Foreigners by Inoue & Ito (1993).