The Japan Foundation, New Delhi (South India)
ARISUE Jun

At The Japan Foundation, New Delhi (hereinafter "JFND"), I was dispatched as a Japanese-Language Specialist in charge of the South India region, and stayed in Chennai city in Tamil Nadu state with a Japanese-Language Assistant until FY2019. In addition to Tamil Nadu state, the region that I oversee includes the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and the Puducherry union territory. Furthermore, support for neighboring countries of South Asia is also included in my work.

1. Japanese-Language Education in South India

The number of Japanese-language learners in South India is approximately 13,000, which accounts for approximately one-third of the 38,000 Japanese-language learners in India as a whole. The state of Tamil Nadu in particular, including Chennai city, is a region where Japanese-language education is thriving, with approximately 10,000 Japanese-language learners, making it the state in India with the most Japanese-language learners. In many cases, engineers and students from science and engineering universities study the Japanese language so for their jobs. Additionally, Bengaluru, the capital of the neighboring state of Karnataka, is a region with many IT engineers and is said to be India's Silicon Valley. These IT engineers come from all over India, many of them speak the Japanese language, and many of them also learn the Japanese language through corporate training. For these reasons, Japanese culture is more popular than the numbers suggest, and Japanese culture, including Japanese pop culture, is well loved. It is also understandable that Japan Habba, India's premier Japan festival, attracts large numbers of visitors every year.

In South India, in addition to studying for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (hereinafter "JLPT") N3, which is said to be necessary for employment at Japan-related companies, communication skills are becoming more and more important every year. This can be seen by the fact that an overwhelmingly large number of educational institutions in India use the communication oriented "Marugoto: Japanese Language and Culture” Japanese-language teaching materials (hereinafter "Marugoto").

2. South India Teacher Training Course

In 2019, we held a 30-hour teacher training course in the cities of Bengaluru and Chennai in South India. More than 40 people participated, from people who had not yet taught the Japanese language to teachers who wanted to brush up their Japanese-language education　teaching skills. They set their own "Can-Do" (a concrete "be able to do ~" type goal) lesson goals, made skits, and practiced composing a practical lesson. The teams also filmed their skits at a simple studio that used a green screen, then, we digitally added the background and the skits into full-scale teaching materials. While passing the JLPT is often the goal, I think that it was a good learning experience for the teachers to create their own communicative teaching materials and to think about how to teach them.

In South India we also hold 12-hour workshops for people who are currently teaching, as well as numerous mini-workshops and seminars, etc.

Filming educational teaching materials during the teacher training course

3. Japanese-Language Business Pitch Contest

On June 20, 2020, we held the first Japanese Business Pitch Contest in India. A "pitch" is a short presentation, such as of a business idea. Out of the more than 30 applicants from all over India, 12 people were chosen in the first selection round and then presented their business ideas online. The presenters gave very interesting pitches one after another, introducing an unconventional idea into the real world, showing the idea's market size and the basis for the data via numbers, and laying out a concrete roadmap for realizing the idea. However, after their pitches, they had to answer pointed questioned from judges who are well-versed in business. The contest let the participants see how they can utilize the Japanese language in a workplace, one of the goals for learning the Japanese language. The contest can be viewed on YouTube at the following URL, and I hope you will take a look and predict who the winner will be!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SSB1jAQtM

Some of the participants, judges, and organizers of the online Japanese Business Pitch Contest

4. International Conference on Japanese Language Education in South Asia (JLESA '19-20)

In November 2019, the 2nd International Conference on Japanese Language Education in South Asia (hereinafter "JLESA '19-20") was held at the English and Foreign Languages University (hereinafter "EFLU") in Hyderabad city in South India. During the event, South Asian representatives from Japanese-language educational institutions in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, as well as representatives from India, visited the venue and gave presentations on the state of Japanese-language education in each country. Representatives from Pakistan also participated via Zoom and gave a video presentation. Furthermore, there were also participants from Russia and Japan, and, similar to the previous JLESA, there were about 100 participants in total. The two days had a very substantial schedule, such as with research presentations on Japanese-language education rooted in the practices of each country and discussions on the future direction of Japanese-language education in South Asia.

Additionally, due to the effects of COVID-19, many classes at educational institutions in South Asia became online classes, so, from April to June 2020, the EFLU teachers and the JFND (South India) collaborated to hold five JLESA Special Online Forums. More than 300 people from all over the world, primarily from South Asia, participated in the JLESA Special Forums and had discussions on how to improve online lessons.

February 2019 JLESA '18-19 videos
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcwg2_6NUfw-xLLtArxC92RtzkbkQC-Br

JLESA Special Online Forum videos (partial)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcwg2_6NUfw97SnQMpmUT1l2E6E8FIsw9

5. Making Use of the Internet for Seminars and Events

Continuing on from the previous year, in December 2019, the Japanese Language Short Film Contest in South Asia was held online. The winner for this year's contest was a middle secondary school student from Bhutan who had fun introducing Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, while dressed in traditional clothing. From the below link you can watch all 26 short film submissions, including the winning one, so we hope you enjoy watching these videos from different countries in South Asia!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcwg2_6NUfw-WCCHE9EKfz_B2NWQCes7j

In March 2020, we could not hold face-to-face seminars, etc. due to the impacts of COVID-19, so we began online mini-workshops by making use of our know-how. There was a variety of content for these mini-workshops, such as an online chat space for an opportunity to use the Japanese language; matters related to Japanese-language teaching methods, such as discussions and tours of classes using "Marugoto"; and workshops for teaching online lessons. This was also right at the time when online classes had started at Japanese-language educational institutions in Japan, so there were many participants from Japan, and, as a result, these mini-workshops became an opportunity for collaborative learning between teachers from South Asia and teachers from other regions such as Japan. Additionally, the participants from all over the world learned at least a little bit about Japanese-language education and Japanese-language teachers in South Asia.

Some of the online mini-workshops that we have held until now can be found at the links below, so please check them out!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcwg2_6NUfw9gkKPOcSNS0KV5UFOttxWF

From South India, we will continue to disseminate Japanese-language education for India nationwide, for South Asia, and for the world, so watch our pages for updates!

https://www.facebook.com/JFSouthIndia
https://www.youtube.com/JFSouthIndia