The Japan Foundation, Sao Paulo
KUNO Gen, KAKIUCHI Ryota, NAKAJIMA Eriko, SATOMI Aya

It is difficult to describe the Japanese related activities of The Japan Foundation, Sao Paulo (hereinafter “FJSP”) due to the wide range of domains they cover. However, to try to do so anyway, our main tasks are the spread of Japanese-language education and teacher training throughout Brazil and the rest of South America. Below, each of the four Japanese-Language Specialists here will describe their area of responsibility.

The Launch of Online Courses–KAKIUCHI Ryota, In Charge of Japanese-Language Courses

Online courses have become a hot topic for Japanese-language courses in recent years. We began operating a Japanese-language course for learners in Brazil from April 2018 using the JF Japanese e-learning Minato (hereinafter “Minato”) platform for learning Japanese online. As a result of launching the online courses, the scope of learners has expanded from those living in and around Sao Paulo to include all of Brazil.

We then released a course of continuous online sessions in March 2019. The response to the announcement was huge, with nearly 380 people applying for the 20 slots available for the course. Previously, we had held one-off online courses twice, both of which received a very high number of applications, so we are strongly aware of the need of learners for online courses. However, despite the high number of applicants, there were cases in which some of the students who were selected did not show up on the day of their session. Accordingly, for the most recent course, we changed how we selected students as well as how we interacted with them before the course. As a result of those changes, 16 of the 20 students selected made it to the first online session. Those students, who came from such cities as Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Brasilia, and Goiás, gathered online to meet new friends and fellow students, embarking on a voyage of learning from the Minato (port) platform where the course was offered. I am relieved to see that the course has now made a good start. The next question is, of course, how many will graduate. I intend to watch over and assist the students to see how many of them reach the next Minato under my continued support.

Achievements of the Languages without Boarders Program–SATOMI Aya, Head of Higher Education

The Languages without Borders (Idiomas sem Fronteiras in Portuguese) program of the Ministry of Education of Brazil, currently offers Japanese-language courses at five federal universities: University of Brasilia, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Federal University of Paraná, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and Federal University of Amazonas, as well as one state university, Paulista State University, Assis Campus. This course is offered to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as university staff, with the goal of raising the level of internationalization and research at Brazilian universities to achieve language education that enriches higher education. The focus of the Japan Foundation in supporting the program is to “cultivate more people to be friendly to Japan and Japanese culture and have an interest in Japan fostered by familiarity with the language and culture,” and “to train Student Tutors who are majoring in Japanese at federal and state universities and in charge of teaching the courses.” To date, a total of over 1,100 people have taken the courses, and we have supported 35 Student Tutors. The support for the program is showing strong results, with some of the course students going on to study in Japan, and many of the Student Tutors becoming Japanese teachers after graduating from university.

Diverse Japanese-Language Education–NAKAJIMA Eriko, In Charge of South America

Map of Japanese-language education in South America for 2019

My main duties as the Japanese-Language Specialist in charge of South America is to provide support for Japanese-language education in the nine Spanish speaking countries, to survey the state of Japanese-language education in each country, to give lectures at teacher training hosted by the Teachers Associations in each country, and to carry out advisory tasks such as assisting in network formation. The current state of Japanese-language education is different for each country. Furthermore, the variety of learners is wide as well, including those who major in Japanese at university, those who study at language schools as a hobby driven by their interest in anime or manga, and those who study Japanese starting at pre-schools run by ethnic Japanese, achieving a rank of N1 on the JLPT by the age of 13. This wide range of reasons to study Japanese is one of the characteristics of South America. Another phenomenon found only in South America, and nowhere else in the world, is perhaps the way that native language education given by Japanese immigrants to their children eventually developed into their original Japanese-language education. Seeing this variety, I find it a constant challenge to decide how to provide support that meets local needs. There are major differences in the goals and policies of Japanese-language education in each country and region of South America depending on the people and communities there, so knowing about those is the key to understanding the local needs in each. While it would not be easy to meet all of those needs, the sheer variety of Japanese learning environments is one of the appeals of Japanese-language education in South America, so my support is predicated on giving the local people in each area pride in their diversity.

“Teacher Growth and Support” KUNO Gen–In Charge of Primary, Secondary, and Other Educational Institutions

Training workshop for primary and secondary educational teachers

My primary duty is support for Japanese-language education at primary, secondary, educational institutions and other educational institutions. This year, a major achievement occurred for teachers at primary and secondary educational institutions. The “Pioneiro Study Group,” formed in 2016 by a group of primary educational teachers, received a small grant from FJSP this year to plan and implement a training workshop for primary and secondary educational teachers. Members of the group served as instructors for the training workshop and taught the participating teachers about the “Children’s Can-Do” teaching materials they helped develop. FJSP will continue to provide support so that these types of initiatives on the part of the teachers themselves can continue.