In recent years, primary and secondary foreign language education in Japan has been going through major changes in the run up to the Japanese education ministry's new 'Course of Study' containing various policies influenced by the CEFR. Chinese language education in Japanese universities will need to respond to such changes by 1) considering how to respond to the new intake of graduating high school students educated under the new policies and 2) identifying elements of the new course that can be beneficially incorporated into Chinese language education in Japanese universities. In the belief that Chinese language education in Europe, where the CEFR originated, can serve as a useful reference, the authors observed classrooms in the UK, noting ; 1) the division of speaking into separate interaction and production components produced positive results. 2) many educators are passionately involved in developing authentic teaching materials 3) plurilingualism and pluriculturalism, which will not be reflected in the Japanese 'Course of Study', have a central role in the UK, where some non-standard varieties of Mandarin Chinese are also taught. We hope to inspire the development of new teaching materials based on these principles by sharing our findings with our colleagues across Japan.

研究論文