Dovletmammet Azadi Turkmen National Institute of World Languages
National Institute of Education of Turkmenistan
OUCHI Masafumi

Turkmenistan is a country in Central Asia located west of the Caspian Sea, south of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and north of Iran. Many of you may have first heard of the country during the 2019 Asian Cup soccer tournament. As of May 2019, the Japan Foundation (hereafter referred to as "the Foundation") has dispatched a Japanese-Language Senior Specialist (hereafter referred to as "Senior Specialist") and a Japanese-Language Assistant (hereafter referred to as "Assistant") to work as a two-person team.

Japanese language education in Turkmenistan began in 2007 with the opening of a Japanese language major at the Dovletmammet Azadi Turkmen National Institute of World Languages (hereafter referred to as "Azadi University"), one of our host institutions. Since then, following a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015, the program has rapidly spread to primary, secondary, and higher education institutions, and currently there are 19 institutions offering Japanese language education in Turkmenistan, and more than 3,000 students.

However, despite a history of more than a decade and a rapid increase in the number of students in recent years, it is not an exaggeration to say that Japanese language education in this region is still in its infancy. Therefore, with the mission of supporting Japanese language education in the country as a whole, instructors dispatched by the Foundation support primary and secondary education and Azadi University, and develop teaching materials. Among these tasks, the Assistant is particularly involved in reviewing the structure and curriculum of the Japanese language department at Azadi University, supporting Turkmen instructors, and conducting Japanese language classes. As someone working in the field at Azadi University, as I deal with local instructors and students on a daily basis, I am conscious of developing their abilities.

The exterior of Azadi University

Azadi University, which is at the core of the Assistant's duties, is the only institution of higher learning in Turkmenistan where students can major in Japanese, and is virtually the only training institution for Japanese language teachers. By focusing our efforts on supporting Azadi University, we hope to indirectly have a ripple effect on Japanese language education in Turkmenistan as a whole. For this reason, the Assistant approaches their work at Azadi University every day with the awareness of nurturing instructors in the field, nurturing students, and nurturing future teachers.

From the perspective of nurturing in-the-field instructors, issues that need to be addressed include the Japanese language skills of those instructors, teaching techniques, and work procedures.

In order to improve Japanese language skills, we hold weekly studying sessions for instructors to brush up their Japanese language skills. In terms of teaching techniques, we observe classes, review teaching materials, and confirm teaching methods. As for work procedures, by creating and sharing joint management resources such as lesson progress charts and tests, and by strengthening the communication structure, we aim to create Japanese language instructors that work as a team. All of these efforts are quite natural, but the local instructors have been working as individuals and are not used to working as a team. Our goal at this stage is first to thoroughly establish the awareness of working together as a team, which we are trying to do this term, and to enhance their capabilities as a team. In the future, I would like to establish a situation where, even if the current instructors and members change, there will always be a solid framework for working and teaching that can be called “the Azadi University style”.

In addition, from the perspective of nurturing students and future teachers, we make an effort to diversify our class activities. Due to the aforementioned circumstances, every year a percentage of Azadi University graduates become Japanese language teachers. Therefore, the forms of learning that students experience during their years of study are directly related to what teachers will be in the future. This is also true for local instructors who are already teaching, but inevitably, the reality is that they can only teach what they are taught, so I believe it is important for students to experience classes with as many different activities and resources as possible from the time they are students.

Although it is dull and common sense in terms of Japanese language teaching practices, I make a conscious effort to use teaching materials that I make myself as needed, incorporate games, have a lot of interaction that is not based on the textbook, diversify the direction of the class so that the interaction is not one-way from the teacher to the students, have the students give presentations, and use the internet and various other equipment as needed. These practices are not uncommon in other parts of the world, but since foreign language teaching in this region is typically done only via the traditional approach of translation and memorization, I want students to experience firsthand that there are other ways of teaching in their student life.

In addition, I believe that when teachers carry out lessons with an ambitious spirit, it makes the classroom experience more dynamic and helps students feel the joy of learning a language in a more three-dimensional way, which is ultimately also useful for students who do not want to become teachers.

The mission of the staff dispatched to Turkmenistan by the Foundation is to develop human resources that will contribute to the future, and to build a system for that. We believe the key to this is to create a system for teaching and departmental management that can be reproduced and revised, rather than conducting activities that will bring us back to square one with each new generation of teachers. The Foundation dispatches Japanese-Language Specialists for three years at most, and Assistants for two years. With the help of Senior Specialists and local instructors, I will also continue to study every day and look for paths toward future improvement so that the quality of the baton I pass on will be higher every year.