Jagiellonian University
AONUMA Kunio

I have entered the second year of my posting in Poland, where I have been dispatched by the Japan Foundation (hereinafter “JF’). Something that has recently stood out to me is that students from Japan use the winter and spring breaks to visit Poland. University circle groups and high school students from Tokyo and Kobe are strengthening exchanges with Polish students. I’m going to tell you about the state of Poland’s Japanese-language education with a focus on various kinds of events.

(1) The Japanese Speech Contest

The regular annual Japanese speech contest took place in March this year at the Information and Culture Center at the Japanese Embassy. A total of 21 speakers participated in the contest: three from secondary schools and 18 from regular universities, and they all showed off the results of their day-to-day studies. A large audience gathered at the venue, and dozens of people from Japanese university groups who came to watch were charmed by the speakers’ high proficiency and their expressions.

Prize winners of the Japanese Speech Contest 2018

For the Japanese speech contest, we send invitations to Japanese people living in Poland and to Japanese-language education specialists (Polish and Japanese) to ask if they will serve as judges. Some of them even travel from another country, including from Japan. The JF’s Japanese-Language Specialists (hereinafter “Specialists”) oversee the contest judging as heads of the judging committee, and search for judges to invite from outside Poland. This year, fortunately, teachers from Japanese university and the JF Japanese-Language Chief Advisor for Hungary also participated. Once the members of the judging group are mostly arranged, a program is created, and each educational institution is informed in November, four months before the contest, while speaker applications are accepted.

On the day, the contest started around noon. Poland is a spacious country, and it can take three or four hours to reach Warsaw (in the center of Poland) from certain regions, so it would be difficult to start the contest in the morning. During the opening ceremony, once we had greeted the organizers and visitors, the Specialists introduced the judging policies and standards, and the contest began with the secondary school section. There were three speakers, who talked about the ways that women live and about pop culture. One of these spoke about Japanese aesthetics; we were very impressed with the content, as it exceeded secondary school level. There were 18 speakers in the regular university section, and while many of their themes concerned culture and personal growth, the winner talked about issues connected to the protection of nature.

The judging of these contests is carried out based on content (assertation, originality, and composition), Japanese-language proficiency, and the manner of presentation (tricks used to convey the content, etc.). There is also a question-and-answer session about the topic after the speech. We have to rank the 18 speakers in the university section, and also consider the fairness of the judgement. Scoring and ranking people from around three minutes’ speech and a question-and-answer session is a huge responsibility for the judges, and there was a close contest in the judging this year too. The level of the speeches has been rising in mutual competition, and the way they should be judged will be a challenge for the future.

(2) The Southern Poland Japanese Teachers Network

The Polskie Stowarzyszenie Nauczycieli Języka Japońskiego (Poland’s Japanese Teachers Network) covers all the regions of Poland, and runs regular seminars in March and December each year. On the other hand, in recent years, a dozen or so Japanese teachers have been dispatched across Poland for short periods (less than a year); there are high hurdles they need to overcome for them to be active as members of the teachers network, and so it is hard for them to become members. However, there are people who are struggling with how to teach in their current location or with clever solutions in their work. We have held study meetings in Krakow with the aim of providing a place for teachers who are active in and around Krakow to discuss their worries, but we needed this to cover a wide region, and so in January this year the Specialists renamed these meetings the “Southern Poland Japanese Teachers Network” and recruited members for this.

Seminar for the Southern Poland Japanese Teachers Network

Ten teachers gathered for the first meeting, including local Krakow teachers, and spoke to each other about their day-to-day worries as well as giving practical reports on their locations. They even introduced tricks for lessons and rare teaching materials. We decided to set up a website to exchange information, etc. We have also decided that people will write proposals for this teachers network.

At the second meeting in March, we invited Professor SADANOBU Toshiyuki from Kyoto University to hold a lecture. Professor Sadanobu is the linguist driving the “My Funny Talk Project,” and his theme on this occasion was “What I want to do with funny talk.” It was a lecture that left a deep impression on the participants, with stimulating content connected to words, including talk of “characters” and “senses of humor.”

(3) Other Exchange Events

1. (1) Jagiellonian University’s exchange meeting with students from Keio University: In the middle of March, a circle group from Keio University came to Jagiellonian University after visiting a university in Torun. Following presentations that included self-introductions, the students entered into conversation with each other.
2. (2) Exchange meetings between a secondary school in Łódź and the Senri International School of Kwansei Gakuin: These exchange meetings were held over a week in the middle of March. The school held a welcoming lecture in Japanese on “Poland’s current government and society,” and there were also tours of a church, museums, and exchange introduction classes in Japanese and English, as well as presentations by the students of the Senri International High School of Kwansei Gakuin (themes on “High school life” and “The neighborhood of Osaka and Osaka dialect”).
3. (3) Exchange meetings between a secondary school in Zabrze and Kunitachi College of Music Junior & Senior High School: In the latter half of March, exchange meetings were held across the whole city over a three-day two-night schedule. The school was also involved in a joint concert with the Zabrze City choir, and took part in exchange meetings with middle and secondary school students who are studying Japanese (rock, paper, scissors championships; games of fukuwarai (a traditional Japanese game); performances of the tea ceremony; “Tokyo Ondo” (a traditional Japanese dance); Polish dances, etc.)

I have also heard of exchange meetings in other areas, and I get the impression that the connection between Japan and Poland is strengthening.