JAPAN FOUNDATION WORLDWIDE

Text design makes it fun to teach Japanese

Since 2009, the Special Program in Foreign Language: Japanese (Nihongo), Spanish, and French has been implemented as a pilot project under the initiative of the Bureau of Secondary Education of the Department of Education (DepED/BSE, Philippines). The said program - a pilot project in Science and Public High schools in Metro Manila – will be conducted until 2011.

The Japan Foundation, Manila, in seeking to develop a curiosity in different languages and culture through the study of Nihongo, has recently completed the “enTree – Halina! Be A NIHONGOJIN” materials (referred to as “enTree” below). This includes instructional guidebooks and workbooks that will improve the preparation of original teaching materials that focuses on cultivating one’s communication skills and problem-solving abilities.

This “enTree” which is composed of 16 lessons for 1 year (2 years in total), aims to promote the study of Nihongo for communication, in addition to producing an understanding of different cultures through an exchange among the current generation of youth studying Nihongo worldwide. Moreover, it seeks to direct a rediscovery of the value of Philippine culture by reflecting on the similarities and differences of the Philippines with Japan and other countries, while exploring the Japanese culture.

 As the title “enTree” entails, it seeks to provide students an “Entry” to the global community that will enable them to enjoy (e: enjoy, experience) the study of the Japanese-language (n: Nihongo), while expectantly looking forward on the growth of their own study tree (Tree). The subtitle “Halina! Be a NIHONGOJIN!” extends an invitation to be part of the network of “Nihongojin:” the network of people who speak Nihongo.

Teachers taking a class in Yukata to experience Japanese culture

Furthermore, the Japan Foundation, Manila conducted a teacher training course – “Course on Japan for High School Classroom Instruction (CJH)”- over a 6-week period from April 12 to May 21. 29 Filipino high school teachers from the English language and Social Studies departments of 14 schools in Metro Manila participated in the said course, and are set to teach Nihongo in their respective schools for school year 2010-2011. Edward sensei, a participant from F. Torres High School, expressed his enthusiasm in being able to teach, in his own way, the importance of being culturally-sensitive.

The Japan Foundation, Manila, continues its unwavering support for the “Special Program in Foreign Language : Japanese”; we are earnestly looking forward to the time when the Japanese-language education “tree” is deeply rooted in Philippine High Schools - sturdy, continuously nurtured, grows bigger, and bears fruits.

Photo panels from the Japan Foundation’s Traveling Exhibition “Scenes of Childhood: Sixty Years of Postwar Japan”: Photos of children who lived through the post-war reconstruction with a tough spirit	A photo by the late Haruo Ohara supplied courtesy of the Instituto Moreira Salles. Children of Japanese immigrants to Brazil

The Japan Foundation, Sao Paulo, in cooperation with local Japanese-Brazilian communities, hosted a photo exhibition “Scenes of Childhood: Sixty Years of Postwar Japan” in January 2010. This is one of the Japan Foundation’s Traveling Exhibitions with 100 photographic works focusing on the everyday life of children that depict social transformation in Japan after the devastation of the World War II to the present. In Sao Paulo, many people were still on their vacation in January, but this exhibition attracted nearly one thousand visitors within a short duration of two weeks. It also received media coverage including two major TV stations, so the overall response was excellent. The theme of the exhibition, children and postwar reconstruction of society, contributed to such attention from the public and the media, but there was more to it. To compare and contrast with the photographs of children in Japan, we exhibited photographs of children of Japanese immigrants in Brazil. These children were living in the same period but on the other end of the globe. Thanks to the cooperation of the Instituto Moreira Salles, we presented the slide show of photographs by the late Haruo Ohara on a large screen. Mr. Ohara’s camera captured the scenes of descendants of Japanese immigrants in colonies in Brazil. This parallel exhibition helped the audience to pay closer attention to the relationship between Japan and Brazil. Sao Paulo is the city with the largest Japanese-descendant community in the world, and there are many Japanese residents who spent their childhood in the postwar Japan before immigrated to Brazil. Such historical background made this photo exhibition a significant event.

One of the Japan Foundation London’s priorities is to ensure the delivery of its programmes reaches not only the greater London area but the entire country, appealing to as many audiences as possible. For the past three years, we are happy that we were able to achieve a roughly 50% increase in the number of projects, and indeed the number of participants has also doubled.

Numerical advancement, however, is just one of what members of staff of the London office consider as important, and indeed we would like to report two instances that reflect the collateral challenging efforts in searching out and delivering innovative approaches and contents to our programmes.

Webpage contest top prize-winners and judges	Webpage contest overall winner and judges

First, we have successfully launched and concluded the new initiative of a Japan Webpage Contest open for primary and secondary schools for the entire UK. Schools have competed through posting on the World Wide Web the contents of their Japan-related projects, whether language-based or any other subject or a special project about Japan. It was aimed at those individual educational and learning efforts which tend to be confined within particular classes or schools, ensuring they can be widely shared through the Internet, thus acknowledging their achievements and encouraging further efforts, while hoping to invite more students, teachers and schools to join in such efforts in the UK and beyond.

In spite of a rather short entry period, thirty-two schools have participated, and four schools have been selected to present their websites in the award ceremony held at the Japanese Embassy in London. Please take a look at these fun websites at http://www.japanwebpagecontest.org.uk/.

What is noteworthy about this contest is that out of those 32 schools which entered in the competition, twelve schools were yet to begin their Japanese language programmes, including two of those four which received awards. Thus this new initiative has demonstrated its benefits not just in disseminating the “best practices” of Japan-related web pages in UK schools globally, but also in finding about those new potential partner schools in the future, hopefully joining the wider collaborative network of Japanese language learning. Furthermore it has shown that there were actually many interesting and innovative ways to provide educational opportunities for children to learn about Japanese arts, culture and society.

Sound instruments presented in Ukiyoe

The second example of such initiative as we endeavour to be innovative relates to last year’s Japanese Music and Composers series, in which we have invited various experts on subjects in rarely focused upon areas of music. Invited guest lectures/demonstrators include those with expertise in keyboard harmonica, Taisho Koto, and an academic who lectured and demonstrated sound instruments contained in Ukiyoe prints.
We have tried to draw the audience’s attention to unique instruments and to help develop a multifaceted and nuanced appreciation of what constitutes Japanese music and sound within its own cultural and historical settings. The series is one reflection of our serious efforts in continuously searching for catering to various segments of the society, including the younger generation in London, where domestic and international cultural programmes and projects are in healthy, yet fierce competition, in no lesser manner than seen in the global capital of finance.

Lastly, we would like to cite a few items of news related to our activities in the programme area of Japanese studies and intellectual exchange. One is the establishment of a special scholarship for modern Japanese studies at Oxford University, donated by Prof. Arthur Stockwin, who was a founding director of the University’s Nissan Institute. He was a recent recipient of the Japan Foundation Award in 2009. Secondly, we have successfully organised in March of this year a unique quarto-partite academic and public conferences on the theme of cultural heritage in East Asia. It was attended by experts from Japan, UK, Korea and China. Lastly, the London office has supported the project exhibition at Royal Geographical Society in London, whereby a Japanese geographer was made Honorary Fellow in recognition of his achievement in researching and presenting the exhibition.