Educational Renaissance / School offers free English seminar
By Hiroyuki Ogaki and Yuka Matsumoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
The following are excerpts from The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series focuses on how universities are contributing to local communities.
HIGASHI-OSAKA, Osaka--Japanese businesspeople, sitting alongside foreigners, study the basics of business English, including how to introduce themselves and how to write e-mails.
This was a scene at a free English lecture held at Kinki University in late August. The summer event, held for three days from Aug. 27, was the first free English seminar organized by the university's Eigomura E3 [e-cube] (The Village--English, Enjoyment, Education) facility, which opened last November on the campus, which has an enrollment of about 20,000 students. Eleven foreign staff members from four English-speaking countries are stationed in turn at the facility.
There were 36 participants in the first seminar, many of them in their 20s and 30s. The businesspeople came from as far away as Tokyo and Kyushu. This was because the university sent advertisements for the event to about 1,000 companies nationwide.
Prof. Sachiko Kitazume, "mayor" of the "village" and manager of the university's career center, assumes the publicity through e-cube will serve to generate employment for his school's students. The university is planning to further expand the seminar for next summer.
"I felt as if I were in a foreign country," said Kazuhiro Otsuka, 26, a trading company employee. Misa Mochizuki, 28, from a machine maker, said, "If I were a student at Kinki University, I would come here all the time." Part of the cause for praise is the environment that has been created at the facility.
Japanese is prohibited within the facility, even for Japanese staff. People within the facility are required to speak only in English, and manga and magazines stocked there are all in the lingua franca. TV programs are also in English.
The 11 foreign staff members from Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the United States each have their own specialty, such as fashion, sports or cooking. Each day, they offer a variety of events.
Kinki University opened the facility to create an environment that fosters English, even for students who don't like the language. The facility also has a snack bar, where students can get hot dogs or hamburgers.
The building itself is also attractive. Oddly shaped wood lines the walls, which are covered with glass, giving way to a 10-meter ceiling. The building cost about 400 million yen to construct.
Various events, such as concerts and comedic performances, are held once a month. During the long school holidays, the facilities are open to anyone over high school age. Over a nine-day period in August, 658 people, including people in their 80s, took advantage of the facility. But visitors were not just limited to the general public. Staff from 67 middle schools, high schools and universities nationwide came to see the facilities.
When the IAAF World Championships in Athletics was held in Osaka from Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, 16 students at the facilities acted as managing staff in the sports event. The interns helped to deliver images for overseas media and accept reservations for camera positions.
Yumiko Hashimoto, 22, one of the participants, said, "I'm used to talking with foreigners at e-cube, so I was able to understand English with different accents."
Prof. Kitazume believes it is import!ant for students to get off campus and participate in extracurricular activities. "In the West, it's not unusual for universities to give something back to their communities. I think it's time for Japanese universities to do the same," she said.
E-cube, aimed at fostering people who can deal with foreigners freely, has become one of Kinki University's efforts to contribute to the community.
Gunma University helps schools help local immigrant kids
OIZUMIMACHI, Gunma--The 546-member student body at Nishi Primary School in this town includes 110 foreign students, most of whom are Brazilians of Japanese descent. Of them, more than 50 students with very little knowledge of Japanese attend a special supplementary class in which they study the language in small groups and receive tutoring in other subjects such as math.
The special classes are scheduled when, for example, the students' homeroom classmates are studying the Japanese language at a more advanced level.
On one day early last month, some foreign students in the special class were learning multiplication by using an electric board. The board showed problems and numbers on its screen, and when the children touched the right answers, the board played a fanfare. Thanks to this sound, the children seemed to get excited about the activity.
Among them, however, one fourth-grade Brazilian boy looked bored, sitting with his chin in his hand. He stood up only after Ryusuke Igarashi, a third-year student at Gunma University, encouraged him to have a go.
The boy took some time in front of the e-board before touching the screen, but when his answer earned the fanfare, the student finally broke into a smile.
"You should give him some praise," Akihiro Koyano, 40, advised Igarashi, 21, as the teacher in charge of the Japanese-language class. "Just because they cannot speak Japanese well, some foreign students tend to lose confidence in themselves and become withdrawn."
Three years ago, Gunma University began an internship program aiming at developing the professionals needed for a multicultural society. Igarashi was working as an intern under this program for one week at the primary school. This year, 18 students from the university, including Igarashi, were dispatched to schools and other facilities in the town from July to September.
The eastern part of the prefecture, where Oizumimachi is located, is home to many manufacturers. The 1990 revision of the Immigration Control Law prompted local factories to hire many South American nationals of Japanese descent. As a result, the town today has a population of 42,000, of whom 16 percent are Brazilian or Peruvian nationals.
To help the local community better accommodate people with various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, Gunma University has been collaborating with the prefectural government and the governments of some local municipalities that have many foreign residents, such as Oizumimachi, in a project to offer better multicultural education and conduct related research. The project is led by Associate Prof. Megumi Yuki.
The internship program is one major measure under the project. Belonging to the university's Faculty of Social and Information Studies, Igarashi himself does not plan on a schoolteaching career. However, "Based on this experience of working as an intern," he said, "I'd like to study the education system further."
Although the internships have been implemented only in the past three years, the university project of which they are a part dates back to 1998, when Yuki, 46, specializing in educational sociology, conducted a survey on the educational situations facing local foreign students. "I realized that it is also the role of academic researchers to respond to the problems and needs of the people who are struggling with foreign children in the classroom."
The Faculty of Education set up some courses related to multicultural education, while also offering teacher training programs in Oizumimachi. However, finding that the local governments tended to fail to take appropriate measures for their foreign residents, "We realized that it was not good enough to offer help just in the education field," Yuki said.
Six years ago, the project became a university-wide one. Now the institution offers help in various programs for foreign residents, such as health consultations and disaster-preparedness activities. So far, about 1,000 students of the university have been involved in these programs as volunteers.
"Our ultimate goal," Yuki said, "is to develop professionals who can not only work together with the local community in solving its problems, but also propose agendas and implement them. In fact, we're seeing our efforts bear fruit little by little."
(Oct. 11, 2007)
By Hiroyuki Ogaki and Yuka Matsumoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
The following are excerpts from The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series focuses on how universities are contributing to local communities.
HIGASHI-OSAKA, Osaka--Japanese businesspeople, sitting alongside foreigners, study the basics of business English, including how to introduce themselves and how to write e-mails.
This was a scene at a free English lecture held at Kinki University in late August. The summer event, held for three days from Aug. 27, was the first free English seminar organized by the university's Eigomura E3 [e-cube] (The Village--English, Enjoyment, Education) facility, which opened last November on the campus, which has an enrollment of about 20,000 students. Eleven foreign staff members from four English-speaking countries are stationed in turn at the facility.
There were 36 participants in the first seminar, many of them in their 20s and 30s. The businesspeople came from as far away as Tokyo and Kyushu. This was because the university sent advertisements for the event to about 1,000 companies nationwide.
Prof. Sachiko Kitazume, "mayor" of the "village" and manager of the university's career center, assumes the publicity through e-cube will serve to generate employment for his school's students. The university is planning to further expand the seminar for next summer.
"I felt as if I were in a foreign country," said Kazuhiro Otsuka, 26, a trading company employee. Misa Mochizuki, 28, from a machine maker, said, "If I were a student at Kinki University, I would come here all the time." Part of the cause for praise is the environment that has been created at the facility.
Japanese is prohibited within the facility, even for Japanese staff. People within the facility are required to speak only in English, and manga and magazines stocked there are all in the lingua franca. TV programs are also in English.
The 11 foreign staff members from Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the United States each have their own specialty, such as fashion, sports or cooking. Each day, they offer a variety of events.
Kinki University opened the facility to create an environment that fosters English, even for students who don't like the language. The facility also has a snack bar, where students can get hot dogs or hamburgers.
The building itself is also attractive. Oddly shaped wood lines the walls, which are covered with glass, giving way to a 10-meter ceiling. The building cost about 400 million yen to construct.
Various events, such as concerts and comedic performances, are held once a month. During the long school holidays, the facilities are open to anyone over high school age. Over a nine-day period in August, 658 people, including people in their 80s, took advantage of the facility. But visitors were not just limited to the general public. Staff from 67 middle schools, high schools and universities nationwide came to see the facilities.
When the IAAF World Championships in Athletics was held in Osaka from Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, 16 students at the facilities acted as managing staff in the sports event. The interns helped to deliver images for overseas media and accept reservations for camera positions.
Yumiko Hashimoto, 22, one of the participants, said, "I'm used to talking with foreigners at e-cube, so I was able to understand English with different accents."
Prof. Kitazume believes it is import!ant for students to get off campus and participate in extracurricular activities. "In the West, it's not unusual for universities to give something back to their communities. I think it's time for Japanese universities to do the same," she said.
E-cube, aimed at fostering people who can deal with foreigners freely, has become one of Kinki University's efforts to contribute to the community.
Gunma University helps schools help local immigrant kids
OIZUMIMACHI, Gunma--The 546-member student body at Nishi Primary School in this town includes 110 foreign students, most of whom are Brazilians of Japanese descent. Of them, more than 50 students with very little knowledge of Japanese attend a special supplementary class in which they study the language in small groups and receive tutoring in other subjects such as math.
The special classes are scheduled when, for example, the students' homeroom classmates are studying the Japanese language at a more advanced level.
On one day early last month, some foreign students in the special class were learning multiplication by using an electric board. The board showed problems and numbers on its screen, and when the children touched the right answers, the board played a fanfare. Thanks to this sound, the children seemed to get excited about the activity.
Among them, however, one fourth-grade Brazilian boy looked bored, sitting with his chin in his hand. He stood up only after Ryusuke Igarashi, a third-year student at Gunma University, encouraged him to have a go.
The boy took some time in front of the e-board before touching the screen, but when his answer earned the fanfare, the student finally broke into a smile.
"You should give him some praise," Akihiro Koyano, 40, advised Igarashi, 21, as the teacher in charge of the Japanese-language class. "Just because they cannot speak Japanese well, some foreign students tend to lose confidence in themselves and become withdrawn."
Three years ago, Gunma University began an internship program aiming at developing the professionals needed for a multicultural society. Igarashi was working as an intern under this program for one week at the primary school. This year, 18 students from the university, including Igarashi, were dispatched to schools and other facilities in the town from July to September.
The eastern part of the prefecture, where Oizumimachi is located, is home to many manufacturers. The 1990 revision of the Immigration Control Law prompted local factories to hire many South American nationals of Japanese descent. As a result, the town today has a population of 42,000, of whom 16 percent are Brazilian or Peruvian nationals.
To help the local community better accommodate people with various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, Gunma University has been collaborating with the prefectural government and the governments of some local municipalities that have many foreign residents, such as Oizumimachi, in a project to offer better multicultural education and conduct related research. The project is led by Associate Prof. Megumi Yuki.
The internship program is one major measure under the project. Belonging to the university's Faculty of Social and Information Studies, Igarashi himself does not plan on a schoolteaching career. However, "Based on this experience of working as an intern," he said, "I'd like to study the education system further."
Although the internships have been implemented only in the past three years, the university project of which they are a part dates back to 1998, when Yuki, 46, specializing in educational sociology, conducted a survey on the educational situations facing local foreign students. "I realized that it is also the role of academic researchers to respond to the problems and needs of the people who are struggling with foreign children in the classroom."
The Faculty of Education set up some courses related to multicultural education, while also offering teacher training programs in Oizumimachi. However, finding that the local governments tended to fail to take appropriate measures for their foreign residents, "We realized that it was not good enough to offer help just in the education field," Yuki said.
Six years ago, the project became a university-wide one. Now the institution offers help in various programs for foreign residents, such as health consultations and disaster-preparedness activities. So far, about 1,000 students of the university have been involved in these programs as volunteers.
"Our ultimate goal," Yuki said, "is to develop professionals who can not only work together with the local community in solving its problems, but also propose agendas and implement them. In fact, we're seeing our efforts bear fruit little by little."
(Oct. 11, 2007)