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| Four native
speaker teachers of Japanese from around Australia, Ms Naoko Kawai,
Ms Yoko Bloore, Ms Yoshie Sumitomo
and Ms Yumiko Shaw, attended the Training
Program for Teachers of the Japanese Language for Japanese Abroad
in Urawa in November - December. They have been kind enough to report
their experiences to us: We were really pleased to be able to participate in the 2003 Japanese Teachersf Training Course for Japanese Abroad, where we learnt various teaching methods and shared many good experiences with other native speakers who have been teaching Japanese in other countries. Attending the course has been a worthwhile experience. The course was conducted from 19 November to 19 December at the Japan Foundation Japanese- Language Institute, Urawa, Japan. Whilst at the Urawa Institute we saw some familiar faces, such as Mr Kakazu and Netsu-sensei, who have previously worked at the Sydney Language Centre. 36 Japanese teachers from 27 different countries attended the course, and we felt lucky to be amongst them. Upon commencement of the program we embarked on a study trip to Atami (well known for hot springs) for one night, where we exchanged information on the Japanese language teaching situation in our respective countries. After that, we took lectures on Japanese grammar, pronunciation, computer-assisted language learning and intercultural communication. We also had tutorials in Japanese language teaching methodology, as well as our own individual projects to undertake. The course also involved a tea ceremony session and visits to Japanese language schools.  The
Japanese Abroad program provided us with opportunities to reassess
our teaching, and gave us an insight into computer-assisted education
as well as a deeper understanding of both traditional and recent Japanese
culture. Exchanging information and developing friendships with other
teachers was a valuable experience for us, and was also great fun.
The special lecture on present-day Japanese education was very interesting,
and gave us a lot of information on current topics, which we have
found difficult to obtain while living in Australia. After returning
to Australia, we would like to share this useful information and ideas
with our students and other staff. After a month of studying together
in Urawa we feel that we have developed a strong bond with other Japanese
teachers from all over the world. We have been motivated to make the
most of this network for our further development, and the development
of our fellow staff and students. Through this course we gained more confidence that, as native speakers of Japanese living in Australia, we can contribute to many aspects of Japanese language education here. By observing classes in Japan, we were reminded of the importance of using the target language to teach our students. We also furthered our knowledge of Japanese culture, which we can introduce to our students in depth. In addition, we developed skills to adapt various authentic Japanese-language materials into useful resources for language teaching. We are yet to see how participating in the Japanese Abroad program will affect our contribution to Japanese-language education in Australia in the long term, however, even at this early stage we can say that our participation has furnished us with many tools and ideas for teaching Japanese language and culture effectively and enjoyably. As an example, we learned how to use the Minna no Kyozai Site (the eTeaching Materials for Everyonef website created by the Japan Foundation) which supports our teaching in so many different ways. We have also been introduced to a number of fantastic websites that we can use for our class activities. By creating materials from these websites while using our own expertise, we are able to make language learning more hands-on and lively. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the staff in Urawa, as well as in the Sydney Language Centre for supporting us. The Japan Foundation runs the Japanese Abroad program towards the end of every year. We recommend the program to all Japanese native speaker teachers, and hope many will be able to benefit from it for Japanese education in their schools as well as in Australia as a whole! For further information on this and other teacher training programs, please visit the Sydney Language Centre website: www.jpf.org.au/slc and click on eJapan Foundation Grantsf. |
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