The Japan Foundation, London
FUJIMITSU Yuko

As the Japanese-language Chief Advisor (hereinafter “Advisor”), I spend every day looking for ways to create exciting learning environments even given the limitations on my activities due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. In this report, I will introduce the Rakugo and Kobanashi-themed projects carried out here at the Japan Foundation, London (hereinafter “JF London”) as I talk about my job as Advisor, a job that encompasses both the role of a director who creates and work behind the “stage for learning”.

Classical Performing Arts and Japanese-Language Education

The UK has a long tradition of studying Japan and interest in culture and the arts is strong here. Accordingly, I had been looking for ways I could create Japanese-language education programs that appealed to a wide range of people interested in Japanese culture and arts in an easily accessible format. I also wanted to open up new potential for learning the Japanese language through the gateway of culture and the arts. Just as I was considering these ideas, I had the opportunity to meet with an educator who was involved in Japanese-language education in another English-speaking country, the US, where they had been incorporating classical Japanese performing arts such as Rakugo and Kobanashi for many years, and they agreed to assist in my planning at JF London. For those that are not aware of these arts, Rakugo is a traditional Japanese form of monologue comedy involving the telling of well-known comedic stories, while Kobanashi refers to shorter jokes told at the beginning of a show by the Rakugo artist to warm up the audience.

The first Step: Conveying the Appeal of Rakugo

As the first step in the program, I organized an online “Rakugo Starter Event” in June 2020 to which I invited the educator in the US and Rakugo masters from the Rakugo Association in Japan. The event was attended by approximately 100 students and teachers involved in Japanese-language education and Japanese studies in 20 countries throughout the world, including the UK.The event itself, and lectures during the event, were run in English, while the Rakugo performances included English subtitles and the Q&A session used both English and Japanese. I received high praise from the participants, with comments that the event was extremely easy to understand for Rakugo beginners, that the excellent explanations and demonstrations successfully conveyed what makes Rakugo interesting.

Facilitating the Learning of Kobanashi by Trying it

For the next step, I organized the “Kobanashi Workshop for Educators.” This was a training workshop for teachers of Japanese language to incorporate Kobanashi in their classes. The idea for the workshop was born from several ideas. The first was the idea that by having learners express actively themselves through the world of Kobanashi, they would gain an understanding of the context in which words are used and become more aware of the listener. The second was that the experience of expressing themselves with their whole body would deepen their interest in traditional Japanese arts, history, and culture, and develop their ability to appreciate those. Finally, I felt it was important for the Japanese-language teachers to experience this themselves before applying in their classes. The workshop itself was realized in October 2020 with attendance by 22 motivated teachers from 10 European countries. By putting aside their embarrassment and boldly learning by doing, a strange sense of unity arose between the teachers as they shared videos of themselves performing Kobanashi and learned through the process.

An original Tenugui towel produced by the Japan Foundation, London
(Design: Brand Nayuta)

An Opportunity to Share Classroom Practice

One of the teachers who had participated in the workshop went on to use Kobanashi in their own online class in an interesting way in December 2020, and I later had the opportunity to hear about it. Many of the participants in the class were the families and friends of learners who did not understand the Japanese language. Meanwhile, the teacher was not the only one to present Japanese culture. Rather, the learners prepared translations of their own Kobanashi to provide multilingual supports for the listeners. As a result, Kobanashi served to connect the Japanese-language class with the outside world.

After this, I continued to hold meetings for the teachers to share their classroom practices once or twice per month, through which the workshop participants were able to further deepen their connections with each other. The teachers came to work with each other naturally, such as attending each other’s online classes or Kobanashi clubs, participating as guests to comment on the performances of students in the classes of other teachers, and bringing their own students to opportunities for online exchange. Finally, in February 2021, the teachers themselves launched a project to plan a “Joint Online Kobanashi Show” (tentative title) for the learners. The event is intended to serve as an opportunity for exchange in which teachers and learners from throughout Europe and the UK can present their own Kobanashi, rather than as a competition. As of May 2021, teachers from 16 organizations in 8 countries are preparing the event, while 60 students are rehearsing to perform their Kobanashi. I think it is absolutely wonderful that new connections are developing between classrooms throughout Europe as a result of the project.

Creating New Stages for Learning

Through these activities, I believe that the job of the Advisor in planning and running a teacher training program is to invite compelling characters into the classroom and prepare environments where learners can learn from each other unhindered. In other words, it is the job of a director, or a back stage manager, to prepare and maintain new stages for learning. Those stages must be places on which the students wish to stand with their peers, and experiences that the students would wish to share with the other students in their classes.