Mongolia-Japan Center for Human Resources Development
MITSUMOTO Tomoya

Steps Toward Fully Online Courses, and What Lies Ahead

During an online class

Schools throughout Mongolia closed from the end of January 2020. Also here at the Mongolia-Japan Center for Human Resources Development (hereinafter the “Center”), the spring course was postponed and subsequently cancelled. Close to 200 people had been scheduled to take the course. Their fees were repaid, and amid an uncertain future in which it was impossible to tell when we would be able to hold in-person classes in classrooms, and to what extent we would be able to hold them, I began searching for a path toward holding courses online.

Amid these circumstances, I held an inter-teacher training program a number of times and discussions for the summer course, and the “Marugoto Japanese Online Self-Study Support Course” was born. This was at a time when it was being said that considerable labor hours were needed to go fully online. The Marugoto Japanese Online Self-Study Support Course was a small-person course set up to ensure that learning would not stop, and other than a once-a-week in-person class, it took the form of pursuing self-study on “Marugoto Japanese Online.” As a result of preparing support books, video teaching material and so on in the Mongolian language while referring to examples from other countries, and attentively confirming and responding to each participant’s learning situation, the improvements in the participants’ conversational ability were on a par with to those achieved in the ordinary course, and the course obtained a high level of satisfaction. The things that the teacher in charge noticed and learned were shared with other teachers, and recognition of useful digital resources and the importance of a personalized response widened.

For the autumn course, classes were held in person in the classroom, while limiting the number of participants. Due to the experience and confidence I gained with the summer course, I was able to move ahead with planning the course while envisaging what measures I would take when it becomes impossible to hold the classes in person at some point. And, in mid-November, just prior to the mid-term examination, it was decided that it would not be possible to hold in-person classes for some time due to the impact of COVID-19. I set aside two weeks as preparation time, and spent that period establishing the online class environment, holding the inter-teacher training program and class practice, and creating teaching material. As a result of cooperation between the teachers of the respective levels, and thanks to the efforts of students who did not cease learning and took the course even though the course was suddenly switched to online learning, it was possible to bring the course to a successful completion.

Then, in spring 2021, one year on from the outbreak of COVID-19, the course was held entirely online, including the publicity, enrolments, classes and exams (written and oral). Up until then, it had only been possible to offer the classes to people in Ulaanbaatar City who were able to commute to the Center, but now the people taking the course await us in front of their monitors in Mongolia’s regional cities, inside Japan, America and elsewhere. The Japanese-language teachers are also sensing the response to providing learning that exercises ingenuity and leverages the strengths of the digital platform, and to the personalized response.

Looking ahead, regardless of the circumstances they face, this team of teachers, who overcame this difficult situation and achieved a digital transformation in mindset, will no doubt run the course resourcefully. As a Japanese-Language Specialist, I am looking forward to supporting the new endeavors that arise out of everyone’s broadened horizons and the additional tools at their disposal.

Teaching Method Training Session for Primary-Secondary School Teachers 2021

Following on from last year, I partnered with teachers at the Center to hold training for primary-secondary school teachers in January 2021. This fiscal year, we widened the coverage of the training to include not only teachers in regional cities but in Ulaanbaatar City also, and a total of 28 teachers took part. The training was held online, and dealt with the theme of “How to teach online.” Since many of the teachers would be having to teach online from the new term, they also participated in the training extremely enthusiastically this year. The content also covered a large number of basic areas: (1) “Five points to check when teaching online classes”; (2) “Methods for creating video-based teaching materials”; (3) “Looking back at the experience of synchronized classes”; and (4) “Preparing questions for online reading comprehension; Other”. However, arranging online classes into five points to begin with (1. The learners’ environment, 2. Input, 3. Output, 4. Feedback, 5. Evaluation) created a training format in which the participants were made aware of the areas they each needed and at the same time studied those areas more deeply, shared their struggles, outcomes and opinions, taught one another and so on. This helped form of a place for learning together (a community) with a common goal of “holding better online classes,” and led to a high level of satisfaction.

Variety of Events also Held Online

The “Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan” teaching method seminar was held while exercising social distancing

In addition to this, the “Japanese-language education symposium” and “monthly group studies” that the Center holds with the Mongolia Japanese-Language Teachers Association were also held online. Furthermore, online activities accounted for the majority of my activities associated with “JFT-Basic (Japan Foundation Test for Basic Japanese),” the new test connected to the “Specified Skilled Worker” visa that I carry out as an entrusted project, and with my work on popularizing “Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan,” the new teaching material. Even in difficult circumstances, there are various options to realizing goals, and I think it was a year in which the breadth of ideas widened thanks to lower barriers to utilizing ICT and to teachers’ ingenuity, including holding events while exercising social distancing. In addition, the “Mongolia Japanese-language Tadoku reading library,” which saw its lineup increase during the stay-at-home period, also began being utilized online, and I anxiously await the day when it will be possible to have users actually pick up the books again, while continuing to utilize the online format.