Japan training for Japanese language teachers from Chinese universities

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) held the foundation’s inaugural training program for Japanese language teachers from July 31 to August 28, 2023, with all 23 participants coming from China. The participants spent three weeks studying at the Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute in Saitama, followed by field training arranged by SPF.

The 23 language teachers who participated in the training all had many years of experience teaching Japanese at universities as far afield as Hubei, Gansu, and Yunnan.
 
An earlier online training program held in March 2023 attracted about 330 applicants from across China, approximately 100 of whom were selected to participate. Utilizing time after work or on weekends, the trainees received a total of 50 hours of lectures and submitted assignments over a one-month period. Online interviews were held following the completion of this training program and 23 especially talented candidates were selected to attend the training in Japan.

The training program included special sessions given by three experts. One of these was a class on teaching pronunciation and speech-making given on August 16 by Koji Oikawa, chairman of the Japanese Speech Association.
 
Mr. Oikawa has been teaching Japanese in China for 22 years using his own unique teaching methods that focus on pronunciation and speech-making. His students frequently number among the winners at Japanese language speech competitions. Although he nowadays mainly works remotely and devotes himself to teaching Japanese language teachers, China is just one of the 33 different countries in which he has given presentations in the past.
 
The session was a great opportunity for the trainees to experience first-hand the benefits of Mr. Oikawa’s methods and it had them practicing how to go about improving the verbal skills of Japanese language students. Using soccer as an analogy, Mr. Oikawa had the following to say about learning a foreign language: “However much they learn the rules of soccer, students won’t really understand unless they practice dribbling and shooting for themselves.”
 
Through their participation in the lesson, the trainees were able to see for themselves the importance of having students give presentations using a prepared text to put them at ease, the need for students practice using repetition as well as active language activities, and the benefits of praising pupils equally. Despite the serious content, the session was full of laughter and Mr. Oikawa’s own speech was scattered with insights that apply just as much to life outside the classroom.

Bao Deyu, a teacher from Hefei University in Anhui province, had previous experience of learning from Mr. Oikawa, having developed an interest in his teaching practices and learning methods after seeing him at a special class at a summer camp at Peking University. After incorporating these methods into his own teaching, he noted that the guidance about offering praise to pupils has been enormously beneficial.
 
“While your normal tendency is to focus on faults, identifying what the student is doing well and praising them for it builds confidence. I saw with my own eyes how this boosted student motivation and improved the atmosphere in the class. I also saw how having students teach one another helps to embed the language in their memory and prompts further learning on their own,” he explained.

A presentation event was held on August 18, the final day of the training. The teacher trainees had prepared for this day by choosing the topics that most interested them from Japanese culture or language teaching methods. Each of the 30-minute presentations was followed by feedback from the Japanese language instructors and other academics as well as time for answering questions. After first taking in their impressions of each other’s presentations and looking for pointers on how they themselves could do better, it was not long before the venue was full of groups of people in conversation. The following is a more detailed account of two of these teacher trainee presentations.

Zhang Lixia has been teaching Japanese at Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing for 20 years, having first acquired an interest in the language from watching a 1980s drama program. She has been a speech circle instructor for six years and from next year will be responsible for Japanese speech classes. Her background was reflected in the choice of topic with a presentation entitled “An idea for how to judge Japanese speeches.” In her presentation, she made the case that “if students are to get better at public speaking, it is vital that we make good use of feedback from the student themselves, their classmates, and their teacher. By presenting the scoring criteria in a list rather than as a single numerical score, the student is able to see where they have done well and where they have room for improvement.” She emphasized that, rather than words in isolation, taking an interest in elements of Japanese culture and thinking about the meaning behind those words were also important to understanding.
 

Chen Bin of Yunnan Normal University gave a presentation entitled: “How Japanese language is taught in Yunnan province based on mutual understanding.” Originally a doctor of internal medicine, Dr. Chen developed an interest in the culture and people of Japan while participating in training in Toyama funded by the prefecture, leading him to decide to go back to university to become a Japanese teacher. Noting how important it is for people to be alert to the dangers given the threat posed by advances in AI, he emphasized the need for progress in both technology and attitudes to support the development of Japanese language education in China.
 
He noted that “in addition to looking at how we can use AI across all areas of Japanese teaching, I also believe that, in terms of how we think about our role, having a sense of enthusiasm and the ways we engage with our students are vital. We should never forget the initial motivation that led us to become Japanese teachers in the first place. I want my students not just to learn about the Japanese language itself, but also to develop their own personal specialties and find the future path they want to follow.”

In the graduation ceremony that followed, each of the 23 teacher trainees was presented with a certificate and a group photograph was taken. In his address, Yu Zhan, director of the Sasakawa Japan–China Friendship Program, expressed his desire that the experience of the program could be shared with as many colleagues in the Japanese teaching profession as possible. He also spoke of his hope that this would help advance the project and foster interest in Japanese language education around the world.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *  

Here, Nao Soutome, program officer with the Sasakawa Japan–China Friendship Program, and director Yu Zhan give their impressions of the training, commenting also on what makes this program special.
 
――I understand that you received a large number of applications from across China for the online training in March.
 
Mr. Yu: Coming at a time when travel between Japan and China had come to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project was launched with the goal of improving the learning environment for Japanese language teachers in China. While the initial idea was to focus on teachers working in western China where information is hard to come by, thanks to recommendations from a number of Chinese universities and with advice from China experts, we were able to welcome an elite selection of 100 high-quality candidates to take part in our online course in March.

――What are you planning for the second round of trainees?
 
Mr. Yu: We opened applications for the second round of training in mid-September and have an online course scheduled to get underway in mid-October. In addition to online training, our plans for this academic year include sending teaching staff to regional cities in China to hold workshops for local Japanese language teachers. While the primary focus is on the northwest and southwest where information has difficulty getting through, when participants in the first round of training heard about these plans, they expressed a strong interest in also staging these workshops at their own universities.
 
――What is it that makes this program special?
 
Mr. Yu: The program is targeted at the teachers of the 1.05 million Japanese language students in China. Since it would be impossible to offer the same thing to all of them, it is important that we decide where to focus our efforts. In this case, by listening carefully to the advice of China experts, we have succeeded in identifying key people. We are proud of the high quality of the training courses and education we provide, and in this project, we have brought together the very best of Japanese language teaching in Japan and China. Even if you look at the content of the online training, the teachers who participated in the inaugural course showed a very high level of interest and expressed a strong desire to participate again in the future. By changing the subject matter each year, I believe we can offer training programs that will continue to be attractive to past participants.
 
Mr. Soutome: It is the assistance of our Chinese counterparts and the Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute that makes this program possible. I believe we have put together a team that is second to none. The program has been organized in a way that allows us to offer the best in terms of both quality and conditions. As we are dedicating all our efforts to further improving Japanese language education across the different institutions involved, I hope that we can sustain this momentum by continuing to move in a positive direction.
 
What makes this project special, I believe, is something that is also fundamental to the personnel exchanges that the Sasakawa Japan–China Friendship Program has long pursued, namely the forging of close relationships and the bringing together of people. Even if these relationships appear to have been put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel enormously encouraged by the prospect of reconnecting.