Research Institute for Educational Sciences (RIES), Ministry of Education and Sports
AIBAMORI Kana

Since 2016, Japanese-Language Specialists from the Japan Foundation have been dispatched to the Research Institute for Educational Sciences, Ministry of Education and Sports (hereinafter "RIES") and this is the fourth year of the project to provide curriculum, syllabuses, and textbooks for Japanese-language education in secondary education. In addition to the Vientiane, Nongbone, and Phiawat schools, the Japanese language was newly introduced as a second foreign language at Phonthan school in September 2018, and, currently, Japanese-language education is being conducted at four public secondary educational institutions in Vientiane city.

From M1 (1st year students at secondary educational institutions; equivalent to 6th year students at Japanese elementary schools) to M3 (3rd year students at secondary educational institutions), we use the "Nihongo" textbook. This is a textbook created every year by Japanese-Language Specialists who are dispatched to RIES in cooperation with the local teachers. Currently, we are revising a trial edition of "Nihongo 3", while also using it at various schools, to the official version, and at the same time we are creating the trial version for "Nihongo 4"

In this report, I will introduce how we made the "Nihongo" textbook.

The "Nihongo" textbook is written by a total of three authors, a Japanese-language teacher from Laos at the
National University of Laos (hereinafter "NUOL"), a Japanese-language teacher from Laos at the Laos-Japan Human Resource Development Institute (hereinafter "LJI"), and Japanese-Language Specialists dispatched to RIES. These three authors each bring their respective parts of the textbook to each other, write while giving comments to each other, and, when the textbook has reached a certain form, they hold a meeting with the Japanese-Language Senior Specialist at NUOL and Japanese-Language Specialists at LJI. After being revised based on those comments, the textbook is submitted to the Laos Committee for Approval of Curriculum and Instructional Materials (hereinafter "CACIM"). CACIM is a forum to receive comments from a large number of individuals, such as the RIES Executive/Managing Director, staff involved in the creation of textbooks for other subjects, people from the Ministry of Education and Sports, the principals and Japanese-language teachers from various schools. We make further currents based on the comments at CACIM, and then, finally, the trial version is completed. At this point, the trial version will be printed and distributed to a variety of schools, and then for one-year classes at those schools will use the trial version. During this time, the trial version will be further revised through lesson monitoring and through interviews with the teachers who are using the textbook. The following year, after once again receiving comments from the Japanese-Language Specialists and from Lecturers at The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Urawa, the official version of the textbook will finally be approved by CACIM.

In Laos, the textbooks used by primary and secondary educational institutions are national textbooks, and all primary and secondary educational institutions nationwide use the same textbooks. All of those textbooks are created at RIES. The textbooks and instruction books for teachers created at RIES can be viewed at their website. The "Nihongo" textbooks are, of course, also posted there, so feel free to go and take a look.

Textbook
http://moes.edu.la/ries/index.php/en/books-enn/secondary-enn/secondary-textbooks-enn?fbclid=IwAR27YM5QnEZgI0yZmlcNDS3RgII4pxIf6NPegotx8xcU10IW7W-Bw2-pqE8

Instruction book for teachers
http://moes.edu.la/ries/index.php/en/books-en/secondary-en/secondary-techer-en?fbclid=IwAR3pvsNV2Sp4eZHyB946Y9QpigExyabO17CnrmmU95uyyrHjpZk3g4r-y8k