The Japan Foundation, Budapest
HAYASHI Toshio, NAKANO Yuri

At the Japan Foundation, Budapest (hereinafter the “JFBP”), we support Japanese-language education in Hungary, where we are located, and in twelve other countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo), while running Japanese-language courses at the JFBP. In this report, Hayashi, who is in charge of the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe, and Nakano, who is in charge of Hungary itself, introduce the work in JFBP.

In the Corona Crisis

For nearly four months, starting from the end of March 2020, JFBP facilities were closed due to a decree from the Hungarian government, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Under the State of Emergency, commands have been issued to limit going out, etc.; this situation in which neither I nor our staff can go out or meet face-to-face is ongoing, and I have not been able to visit anywhere for over a year—it’s a real shame that I haven’t been able to actually travel to local education facilities in different countries or update my sense of the atmosphere of places from personal experience. In these circumstances, we have continued to implement our plan of study sessions covering classes that people want to try online. These sessions are for Japanese-language teachers who are at a loss, being suddenly pressured to handle online classes by their educational institutions, and aim to provide a forum for online information exchanges and tests of any experimental practices; the one-hour study sessions we started in March 2020 are now held twice a week. As of the end of April 2021, we have held more than 137 of these sessions, with the total number of participants exceeding 2,300 people. As they are online, we have participants from around the world, not just from Central and Eastern Europe, and I am delighted that these study sessions have become a forum that brings Japanese-language teachers together.

The Japanese-Language Education Network in Central and Eastern Europe 2021

The Japanese-Language Education Network in Central and Eastern Europe (hereinafter “Network”) serves as a once-a-year opportunity for the assembly of teachers involved with Japanese-language education in the diverse environments of Central and Eastern Europe. Normally, it takes at least six months to prepare for the Network, but it was decided to hold the Network online for the first time in 2021, as the future is unclear due to the coronavirus crisis. Until now, we have made plans that take advantage of the merits of face-to-face meetings, but this time we racked our brains as to whether we could demonstrate the strengths of the online format. This Network was held online on February 20 and 21, 2021, and was attended by 11 of the 13 countries mentioned above that are supported by the JFBP (the exceptions were Montenegro and Kosovo), as well as participants from Ukraine, the UK, and more—93 participants from a total of 22 countries, including the hosts, hoped to participate, and during the actual event around 80 people joined in each day.

The overall theme for 2021 was “The theory and practice of online classes,” and the keynote speech and workshop were given online by FUJIMOTO Kaoru, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Global Studies in Musashino University and a leader in the field of ICT education. The participants then considered the theory and practice of online lessons for Japanese-language education while they gave presentations and held group discussions online.

We also created an official website for the Network, as we did for the 2020 Network, and used Slack to form an online community before the Network event and to follow up afterwards. For this Network, we made a request of relevant local institutions in the countries eligible for participation (the 13 countries listed above), and they selected participants based on the perspectives of regional spread and people who can contribute to the local area for as long as possible; one significant feature of the Network is that it offers opportunities for young, non-native Japanese-speaking teachers to give presentations, which they do not normally get many chances to do. This time, there were presentations on 11 topics in Japanese, and 8 of the 14 presenters were non-native speakers.

For this Network, we made the most of the advantages of the online format: presentations could be held at the same time in two rooms and the presenters’ slides were easy to see. We also heard impressions stating that no effort was needed for travel, that the Network easily brought participants together from around the world, and that people had been able to immediately confirm the tools involved. On the other hand, the limits of the online format led to unfilled gaps before and after presentations and made it difficult to find time for chatting with specific people. I thought that if the participants continue their efforts to put online classes into practice based on the knowledge they gained in this Network, we will be able to stimulate Japanese-language education in Central and Eastern Europe even more. (Hayashi)

Enjoyment at Home in Hungary

Hungary’s Japanese Video Contest

To continue, my report is about Japanese-language education in Hungary. In Hungary, too, a lot of events, including the Japanese speech contest, have been forced to either cancel or move online due to the coronavirus crisis. In a situation in which physical travel and face-to-face interaction are difficult, the JFBP held the Japanese Video Contest, with the aim of participants effectively sharing their thoughts and information about their country in the Japanese language. Based on the theme of “Enjoyment at home in Hungary,” people learning the Japanese language packed information about how wonderful Hungary is into videos around three minutes long.

Among the competition entries, the warmth of simple Hungarian home cooking and family overflowed from the Japanese narration and images of casual family gatherings in “A country of delicious food and warm people.” In addition to this, the contest showed seven other videos with images of Hungary’s countryside and urban areas, and recipes for Hungarian dishes. These works were created in the hope that a lot of Japanese people will see the videos and feel that they have travelled to Hungary for a moment, and that they will actually visit someday. I would be delighted if they are viewed by as many people as possible. (Nakano)