Jagiellonian University
AONUMA Kunio

Once a year, four universities in Poland run a joint camp led by Japanese studies students, through which they can deepen their friendships. This is a workshop of Japanese studies students, by Japanese studies students, for Japanese studies students. In this report, I will introduce the Japanese speech contest and the latest trends in the Japanese-language teacher training program, with a focus on this camp.

1. The 11th Edition of the Students’ International Japanese Studies Workshop, “Poronin 2019”

The aim of this Workshop is to enable teachers and students, and students and students in the field of Japanese studies to collaborate with each other and to meet face-to-face, so as to clarify their knowledge of the Japanese language, Japanese culture, and Japanese society. The Workshop took place in two venues from April 8 to 13. It was held at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology on the morning of April 8, and then we ran a camp in the small village of Poronin next to the Tatra Mountains 70 km south of Cracow from the afternoon of April 8 until April 13.

The origins of this annual camp date back 10 years, to 2009. It began when Jagiellonian University lecturers collaborated with Slovakian and Czech teachers to establish a joint student camp for Japanese studies, in which students from five universities across the three countries participated.

Over the recent years, students from the four major state universities in Poland that offer Japanese studies specialties (The University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University, Adam Mickiewicz University, and Nicolaus Copernicus University) have taken turns to plan and run this event. This year’s “Gasshuku Poronin 2019,” Students’ International Japanese Studies Workshop, was led by the student group “Kappa” from Jagiellonian University.

Japanese studies students gathered
for a plenary session

The workshop was separated into three main parts, with lectures on Japanese literature, language, and history/culture; exchange seminars during Japanese-language classes; and plenary sessions. The fields of literature, language, and history/culture saw lectures on Yumeno Kyusaku’s world, yakuwari-go (role-language), hentaigana (non-standard kana), an omamori (protective charm) workshop, and kimono dressing. The Japanese-language classes included lectures on “fairytales,” “puns,” “slang,” and “the use of ‘気(energy)’”. The plenary sessions screened videos created independently by each university. Additionally, on the final day, the students enjoyed time outdoors by choosing an activity they wanted to do—for example, a joint hike to Morskie Oko, or a walk around Zakopane, a neighboring town.

Initially, there was a time when the Japanese-Language Specialists arranged the Japanese-language classes. Now, the students are more independent, and plan and run the program autonomously. At the end of the camp, the students also hold a discussion about next year with students from the university who will be handling next year’s event—I’m sure that there’ll be a promising workshop next year, too.

2. (Japanese Teacher Training Course)

The Warsaw School of Japanese Language hosted a Japanese teacher training course. It consisted of three three-hour lectures held from January to March, totaling nine hours.

The Warsaw School of Japanese Language’s
Japanese teacher training course

The school’s vice principal was responsible for the first training lecture in January, which concerned “language education and cultural education.” The language education covered ways of writing on a black/whiteboard, dealing with possible issues while running a class, how to set homework, etc.; the cultural education handled the characteristics of Japanese and their connection with Japanese history.

The school’s principal was responsible for the second lecture in February, which followed the theme of “simple games for use in class,” and introduced a number of Japanese-language learning games that need no preparation.

The third lecture was given on the theme of “conversation classes” by a Japanese-Language Specialist in March. In it, the Japanese-Language Specialist pointed out the importance of the components of conversation (aims, information gaps, options, and responses), and conveyed ways of fostering the necessary skills for conversation, including sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence.

Five Polish teachers and five Japanese teachers participated—most of these had gathered from Warsaw, but there were also participants who had come from far away, including Łódź and Wrocław.

There are very few educational institutions that hold training courses in Poland. Even this training course held by the Japanese School in Warsaw is not a regular course. However, this might be an opportunity to draw attention to the idea that training courses will be essential in the future. While we do run classes focusing on Japanese studies in universities, there aren't all that many teachers who are well-versed in Japanese-language instruction. I hope that lots of educational institutions become interested in training courses, and that they can create opportunities to learn about how to be ready as Japanese teachers and the latest educational techniques to strive to study them, so they can develop Japanese-language education in Poland in the future.

3. (Other)

3−1 The Łódź Japanese Speech Festival (June 2018)

On Sunday, June 10, the fourth Japanese speech contest was held in the multipurpose hall of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in Łódź. Japanese-Language Specialists participated as judges, together with Japanese-Language Assistants. The speakers were students studying Japanese at the University of Łódź, in public courses, and in secondary schools. There is significance to this being called a “festival.” No winner was chosen for this speech contest—instead, the main point was the presentation of the speeches. Around a dozen people were commended, and the organizers also prepared unique prizes, such as a pronunciation prize, a grammar prize, and an effort prize. The participation requirement for the speakers was noted as “people who can convey their feelings,” making this a “festival” where everyone shared the fun, rather than a “contest” where they competed.

3−2 ICEA Japanese Teacher Workshop (September 2018)

A training program for Japanese teachers sent to Poland from ICEA took place in September. The “Łódź training” was held in a classroom at the University of Łódź from the 6th to the 14th, with a focus on Polish-language learning and the current situation in Poland. Then, the program moved to a training camp in Opole from the 15th to the 20th. Here, the program offered participants practice exchanges in primary, middle, and secondary schools; Japanese-language class discussion meetings; sightseeing in the city; and gatherings for exchanges with villagers. Japanese-Language Specialists held lectures on “reading comprehension classes” during the Łódź training.

3−3 The Polskie Stowarzyszenie Nauczycieli Języka Japońskiego　(Poland’s Japanese Teachers Network)　“Japanese-Language Education Seminars” (December 2018, March 2019)

The Polskie Stowarzyszenie Nauczycieli Języka Japońskiego (Poland’s Japanese Teachers Network) holds Japanese-language education seminars twice a year, which are planned and run by Japanese-Language Specialists. The theme of this year’s December seminar was “Considering Japanese-language education in an isolated environment” (it included practical reports on Tadoku reading classes), and Mr. FUJISAKI Yasunori (a Japanese-Language Specialist of the Japan Foundation) from the Ukraine-Japan Center "UAJC" gave the keynote speech. In March, Advisor HAYASHI Toshio (a Japanese-Language Senior Specialist of The Japan Foundation, Budapest) gave a lecture on “Japanese phonology,” and Professor MIHARA Ryushi (Ryukoku University) lectured on “Easy Japanese in Japan’s multicultural society”

3−4 The Southern Poland Japanese Teachers Network’s “Study Meetings” (January and April 2019)

We held study meetings in January and April for Japanese teachers in the Southern Poland region centered on Cracow. We gave the lectures on how to teach characters and vocabulary based on the themes of “How to teach hiragana and katakana” in January) and “How to teach kanji vocabulary” in April, as well as we participated in discussions. We also held debriefing meetings for each educational location, which served as an opportunity to consider even better ways of teaching.

3−5 The 40th Japanese Speech Contest in Poland (March 2019)

This year we welcomed the 40th iteration of the Japanese speech contest, which is held every year. There is fierce competition each year between the content and expressiveness of participants’ speeches, and this year, the competition was a “hot” one with difficult -to -choose-winners that troubled the judges. The secondary school category was won by Berenika, who studies at the Manggha Museum Japanese Language School, and the regular university category was won by Agata from Jagiellonian University—they were given tickets to travel to Japan.