A yoga boom that first began in the United States is growing fast in Japan with the world's largest yoga training organization now offering courses in Tokyo's Ginza district.
In the one month since Bikram Yoga, which teaches so-called hot yoga, launched its first training program on the 11th floor of a Ginza building in January, about 2,200 people have signed up for the classes.
"About 70 percent (of them) are women in their 20s and 30s who hope to lose weight or get rid of stress," said Kenji Ehara, 36, from the business division of Bikram Yoga, which runs about 1,500 fitness studios in various countries.
It plans to open four such studios in Tokyo and in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan, by the summer. Plans call for it to establish 10 new courses a year.
Its Ginza studio is said to be a reproduction of those found in India, the cradle of yoga. The room temperature is set at 40 degrees Celsius and the humidity at 55 percent.
About 40 people in T-shirts, including several men, greet their instructor, bottles of water ready at their feet.
The distinctive feature of hot yoga is that its enthusiasts go through a series of 26 different poses, including one called "Garudasana (eagle pose)," while practicing conscious breathing and perspiring heavily.
The creator of hot yoga, Bikram Choudhury, 60, said during a recent visit to Japan that his discipline is more akin to body care than exercise, adding that it places only a small burden on joints and muscles because the high room temperature helps warm the body and increases the healing power of the body and mind because the blood circulation improves.
Takashi Kadokura, a 34-year-old economist and representative of BRICs Research Institute, estimates that the number of Japanese yoga trainees chiefly practicing hot yoga increased by about 70,000 to about 300,000 last year.
He also said that the market for yoga mats and other yoga-related products has expanded to 19.8 billion yen, up nearly 5 billion yen from a year ago.
The latest yoga boom in Japan followed similar developments in New York and Los Angeles in the 1990s.
Classic yoga centering on meditation was transformed into a more modernized form during the hippie era in the United States in the 1970s, but later merged with a school of yoga that attached importance to breathing and posture.
Power yoga caught on in Hollywood where well-known singers, actors and models became its devotees, including Madonna and Meg Ryan. Called Hollywood yoga, it gained popularity in the U.S. and Europe.
Japanese women's magazines and TV stations began introducing it several years ago as "a celebrity diet."
In Tokyo where a wide range of yoga courses are available, men and elderly people have also shown interest. Even couples and family members take lessons on weekends.
Kadokura said the number of yoga hobbyists is growing in big cities outside of Tokyo such as Osaka and in Hyogo and Aichi prefectures.
He also said yoga is being diversified to include courses for pregnant women, and predicted that by 2010 more than 1.2 million will be practicing yoga and that the related market will balloon to 70 billion yen.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060329/kyodo/d8gktad00.html
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
LEAD: English to be made compulsory subject at Japanese elementary schools
Learning English is expected soon to be made mandatory for students at all primary schools in Japan, following an education ministry panel's recommendation issued Monday, ministry officials said.
The panel offered no specific timeline, but the education ministry plans to revise curriculum guidelines in the next academic year, which begins Saturday.
A Central Council for Education subpanel on foreign languages has recommended that those in the fifth and sixth grades be given an hour-long English lesson each week and that those in lower grades learn the language as part of special activity programs.
Some panel members noted that other Asian countries such as South Korea and China have already made English a compulsory primary school subject. They urged that Japan consider such an option.
More than 90 percent of Japanese public primary schools already offer some form of English lessons, according to the officials.
But the subpanel's report noted that currently offered lessons are not necessarily uniform in activity and hours and cited the need to provide a common base for learning the language.
Japanese students take English as part of official school curricula when they enter junior high school.
The subpanel's proposal is subject to approval by the central council, which advises the education minister, but the officials say there appears to be little opposition in the council.
Some subpanel members opposed the idea, however, saying primary schools should place importance on teaching Japanese or other subjects than English.
They also said there is a lack of competent instructors for the language.
The panel report was compiled after 14 meetings that began in April 2004.
The report dismissed concern that making English compulsory might undermine students' Japanese language skills.
"Leaning English syntax and vocabulary should heighten their sensitivity to languages and it could even have a benign impact on developing the command of the national language," the report said.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060327/kyodo/d8gjsvbo0.html
The panel offered no specific timeline, but the education ministry plans to revise curriculum guidelines in the next academic year, which begins Saturday.
A Central Council for Education subpanel on foreign languages has recommended that those in the fifth and sixth grades be given an hour-long English lesson each week and that those in lower grades learn the language as part of special activity programs.
Some panel members noted that other Asian countries such as South Korea and China have already made English a compulsory primary school subject. They urged that Japan consider such an option.
More than 90 percent of Japanese public primary schools already offer some form of English lessons, according to the officials.
But the subpanel's report noted that currently offered lessons are not necessarily uniform in activity and hours and cited the need to provide a common base for learning the language.
Japanese students take English as part of official school curricula when they enter junior high school.
The subpanel's proposal is subject to approval by the central council, which advises the education minister, but the officials say there appears to be little opposition in the council.
Some subpanel members opposed the idea, however, saying primary schools should place importance on teaching Japanese or other subjects than English.
They also said there is a lack of competent instructors for the language.
The panel report was compiled after 14 meetings that began in April 2004.
The report dismissed concern that making English compulsory might undermine students' Japanese language skills.
"Leaning English syntax and vocabulary should heighten their sensitivity to languages and it could even have a benign impact on developing the command of the national language," the report said.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060327/kyodo/d8gjsvbo0.html
Monday, March 27, 2006
Gajah Mada, Japanese varsities cooperating in double master's degree program
Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - Gajah Mada University`s Economic Faculty has established cooperation with seven universities in Japan in the organization of double master`s degree programs, a spokessman said."The program covers economics, development economics, management and accountancy for post-graduate and doctoral degrees," Dr Ainun Naim, the faculty`s dean, said.
The seven Japanese universities are Kobe University, Hiroshima University, GRIPS, Keio University, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Takushoku University and the International University of Japan.The program consists of 44 credits, including theses 50 percent of which must be completed here and 50 percent in Japan under the supervision of professors at the two parties, he said.
He said in the first phase of the program, 15 students from some institutions in the Indonesian government would take part in the program. (*)
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=10550
The seven Japanese universities are Kobe University, Hiroshima University, GRIPS, Keio University, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Takushoku University and the International University of Japan.The program consists of 44 credits, including theses 50 percent of which must be completed here and 50 percent in Japan under the supervision of professors at the two parties, he said.
He said in the first phase of the program, 15 students from some institutions in the Indonesian government would take part in the program. (*)
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=10550
Educational Reforms: A Lot Can Be Learned From the Japanese
RIYADH, 25 March 2006 — Educational reforms — the theme of the next national dialogue to be held in the northern city of Al-Jouf — can get a shot in the arm if one goes by the experience of the Japanese who stress computer and foreign-language literacy in their curricular program, besides science, mathematics and creative thinking, among other subjects.
This message came across during a meeting Arab News had with a group of Japanese students and researchers who visited the Kingdom’s educational centers, King Abdul Aziz Historical Center, tourist spots, shopping complexes and Saudi Aramco Exhibit during their ten-day visit to Riyadh, Dammam and Jubail that ended on Thursday.
Nobuyuki Oyama, second secretary at the Japanese Embassy, and Seiji Higuchi, researcher on the Middle East and leader of the delegation, were among those present. The Saudi General Presidency for Youth Welfare organized the visit.
Besides Higuchi, the other members of the student delegation were: Masato Tominaga, Fumiho Harada, Seiichi Murayama (all from Tokyo University); Koji Horinuki (Ritsumeikan University); Masashi Fukaya (Tsukuba University); Hiroshi Kawano (Researcher, Petrochemical Co.); Junichi Murao (Arabic Islamic Institute), Tokyo.
The need for educational reforms will take center-stage at the national dialogue, since the general perception is that the present educational system “produces students who are experts at memorization but who cannot think logically and rationally.”
In this context, both Oyama and Higuchi said memorization of lessons, also common in Japanese schools, has been the subject of a debate with the current thinking in favor of a creative approach to learning. Murao, who studied Arabic in Sudan, said he was surprised when his Arabic teacher asked him to memorize the lessons and not write anything on his own.
Koji Horinuki of Ritsumeikan University and Masashi Fukaya of Tsukuba University explained how computer education was gaining greater attention in schools and allowing more free time to students for pursuing subjects of their choice.
Oyama said that though Japanese students continue to be strong in mathematics and science, “the time allotted for these subjects had to be cut down to accommodate other subjects in a crowded curriculum. As a result, they are becoming relatively weak in these subjects.”
In this context, Horinuki said his perception from a shopping experience was that Saudis seem to be weak in calculation.
“The Saudi cashier erred in simple calculation and told me that the price of five items costing SR5 each was SR45!” Teachers acknowledge that heavy reliance on the calculator in Saudi schools has deprived them of the ability to calculate figures mentally.
A salient feature of the educational reforms in Japan is what has been described as “education for the human heart from early childhood.” The main thrust of this program is to sow the seeds of human compassion and develop the strength of character among young children. This would ensure that ill effects of violence and other negative programs on satellite TV channels do not influence young Japanese.
On the question of English teaching, Seiji Higuchi, the leader of the delegation, said there is a revolution in Japan as far as English learning is concerned. “Japanese parents send their children to English-medium schools. Others take private lessons in English so that they improve their communication skills.”
Asked how students spend their vacation, Oyama said teachers give them a lot of homework for the vacation period. They combine home work with surfing on the Internet and going through Manga comics with different themes, such as education, sports, the importance of work ethics, etc. “Hard work is part of our mindset, its importance is underlined both in schools and at home.”
Higuchi, who is here on his second visit to the Kingdom (after seven years), wished he had an opportunity to talk to the ordinary people.
“We saw high class facilities in the Kingdom, met Saudi students and workers in Japanese companies, but we couldn’t meet the ordinary people. We only saw the best part of Saudi Arabia. But when we get tourist visas, maybe, we can see more,” he said.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=79725&d=25&m=3&y=2006
This message came across during a meeting Arab News had with a group of Japanese students and researchers who visited the Kingdom’s educational centers, King Abdul Aziz Historical Center, tourist spots, shopping complexes and Saudi Aramco Exhibit during their ten-day visit to Riyadh, Dammam and Jubail that ended on Thursday.
Nobuyuki Oyama, second secretary at the Japanese Embassy, and Seiji Higuchi, researcher on the Middle East and leader of the delegation, were among those present. The Saudi General Presidency for Youth Welfare organized the visit.
Besides Higuchi, the other members of the student delegation were: Masato Tominaga, Fumiho Harada, Seiichi Murayama (all from Tokyo University); Koji Horinuki (Ritsumeikan University); Masashi Fukaya (Tsukuba University); Hiroshi Kawano (Researcher, Petrochemical Co.); Junichi Murao (Arabic Islamic Institute), Tokyo.
The need for educational reforms will take center-stage at the national dialogue, since the general perception is that the present educational system “produces students who are experts at memorization but who cannot think logically and rationally.”
In this context, both Oyama and Higuchi said memorization of lessons, also common in Japanese schools, has been the subject of a debate with the current thinking in favor of a creative approach to learning. Murao, who studied Arabic in Sudan, said he was surprised when his Arabic teacher asked him to memorize the lessons and not write anything on his own.
Koji Horinuki of Ritsumeikan University and Masashi Fukaya of Tsukuba University explained how computer education was gaining greater attention in schools and allowing more free time to students for pursuing subjects of their choice.
Oyama said that though Japanese students continue to be strong in mathematics and science, “the time allotted for these subjects had to be cut down to accommodate other subjects in a crowded curriculum. As a result, they are becoming relatively weak in these subjects.”
In this context, Horinuki said his perception from a shopping experience was that Saudis seem to be weak in calculation.
“The Saudi cashier erred in simple calculation and told me that the price of five items costing SR5 each was SR45!” Teachers acknowledge that heavy reliance on the calculator in Saudi schools has deprived them of the ability to calculate figures mentally.
A salient feature of the educational reforms in Japan is what has been described as “education for the human heart from early childhood.” The main thrust of this program is to sow the seeds of human compassion and develop the strength of character among young children. This would ensure that ill effects of violence and other negative programs on satellite TV channels do not influence young Japanese.
On the question of English teaching, Seiji Higuchi, the leader of the delegation, said there is a revolution in Japan as far as English learning is concerned. “Japanese parents send their children to English-medium schools. Others take private lessons in English so that they improve their communication skills.”
Asked how students spend their vacation, Oyama said teachers give them a lot of homework for the vacation period. They combine home work with surfing on the Internet and going through Manga comics with different themes, such as education, sports, the importance of work ethics, etc. “Hard work is part of our mindset, its importance is underlined both in schools and at home.”
Higuchi, who is here on his second visit to the Kingdom (after seven years), wished he had an opportunity to talk to the ordinary people.
“We saw high class facilities in the Kingdom, met Saudi students and workers in Japanese companies, but we couldn’t meet the ordinary people. We only saw the best part of Saudi Arabia. But when we get tourist visas, maybe, we can see more,” he said.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=79725&d=25&m=3&y=2006
Thursday, March 23, 2006
DPS, Indraprastha University to teach Japanese language
NEW DELHI: Though it has set its aim at training of about 30,000 Indians in the Japanese language annually in five years' time, Japan is finding meeting the target tough in view of the threat of "poaching" by multinational companies who lure away language-proficient professionals.
According to a senior Japanese Embassy official here, Toshio Yamamoto, an average of about 5,300 people in India learn Japanese every year, but most of them are in the private sector who would rather work with multinational companies than take up the job of teaching, for which there is a tremendous need at present.
"We need to create a pool of teachers to meet the target. While in China about 4 lakh people learn Japanese every year, even in Sri Lanka the figure is higher than in India at around 10,000 students,'' says Mr Yamamoto, adding that to promote the language now cooperation is being sought from Delhi Public School Society and the Delhi-based Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.
While DPS schools would train their junior English teachers in Japanese for teaching their students from Class VI onward, he says, the Indraprastha University has offered to start the language programme at 16 of its 80 colleges to begin with.
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/26/stories/2006022614430300.htm
According to a senior Japanese Embassy official here, Toshio Yamamoto, an average of about 5,300 people in India learn Japanese every year, but most of them are in the private sector who would rather work with multinational companies than take up the job of teaching, for which there is a tremendous need at present.
"We need to create a pool of teachers to meet the target. While in China about 4 lakh people learn Japanese every year, even in Sri Lanka the figure is higher than in India at around 10,000 students,'' says Mr Yamamoto, adding that to promote the language now cooperation is being sought from Delhi Public School Society and the Delhi-based Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.
While DPS schools would train their junior English teachers in Japanese for teaching their students from Class VI onward, he says, the Indraprastha University has offered to start the language programme at 16 of its 80 colleges to begin with.
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/26/stories/2006022614430300.htm
All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education held in New Delhi
All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education was held on 28 February 2006 in New Delhi New Delhi: 24 February 2006
Japan-India relations have been flourishing in recent years, and have especially intensified in the political and economic fields. However, the potential for people-to-people contacts, which is one of the basic pillars of our bilateral relations, has not yet been fully tapped. Thus, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan, and Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, agreed to increase the number of Japanese language learners in India up to 30,000 by the year 2010, and the introduction of Japanese language as an optional foreign language in Indian Secondary School Curriculum, as a part of the Eight-fold Initiative for strengthening Japan-India Global Partnership, agreed at the Japan-India Summit in April 2005.
Towards this direction, the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi, in association with the Japan Foundation New Delhi office, is organizing an “All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education” on 28 February 2006 in New Delhi. The purpose of this Conference is to understand the present status and the bottlenecks of Japanese language learning in India and, based upon these understandings, to discuss about means to remove them and further promote Japanese language education.
http://www.in.emb-japan.go.jp/PressReleases/Embassy_Of_Japan/req7japan2006.htm
Japan-India relations have been flourishing in recent years, and have especially intensified in the political and economic fields. However, the potential for people-to-people contacts, which is one of the basic pillars of our bilateral relations, has not yet been fully tapped. Thus, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan, and Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, agreed to increase the number of Japanese language learners in India up to 30,000 by the year 2010, and the introduction of Japanese language as an optional foreign language in Indian Secondary School Curriculum, as a part of the Eight-fold Initiative for strengthening Japan-India Global Partnership, agreed at the Japan-India Summit in April 2005.
Towards this direction, the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi, in association with the Japan Foundation New Delhi office, is organizing an “All India Conference on Promotion of Japanese Language Education” on 28 February 2006 in New Delhi. The purpose of this Conference is to understand the present status and the bottlenecks of Japanese language learning in India and, based upon these understandings, to discuss about means to remove them and further promote Japanese language education.
http://www.in.emb-japan.go.jp/PressReleases/Embassy_Of_Japan/req7japan2006.htm
Responding to new trends in Japanese studies abroad
By KAZUO OGOURA
Special to The Japan Times
The world is changing rapidly under the influence of globalization. At the same time, the political, economic and even academic environment surrounding Japanese studies outside Japan has changed a great deal. Traditional motives for studying Japan, such as curiosity in the exotic, the perception of Japan as a menace, and anticipation of political conflicts with Japan, have largely been replaced by other incentives.
Grant-making organizations and Japanese academic and educational institutions should reorient their policies to respond to the new trends in Japanese studies abroad. In attempting to reorient their policies, the organizations concerned should first of all recognize the new trends surrounding Japanese studies around the world, particularly in the United States.
One such trend is the decline in the importance of area studies as opposed to interdisciplinary studies. Amid the growing conviction that comparative studies are necessary for analyzing and understanding Japan, scholars in political science, economics and even literature are increasingly placing Japanese studies in a global context.
A second observable trend is the inevitable tendency for international political and economic realities to affect academic studies. Two current examples that pertain to Japan are the comparative stagnation of the Japanese economy since the mid-1990s and the growing politico-military interdependence between Japan and the U.S. Consequently, there is in the U.S. little of the sense of threat or risk that once characterized Japan-U.S. relations. This implies that, unless we actively encourage the interest in Japan at American educational institutions, it will remain difficult to increase the number of students who pursue Japan-related studies.
The third trend we must consider is a change in U.S. strategic interests, which have shifted heavily toward the Middle East and adjacent regions over the past several years.
At the same time, American intellectuals have also been focusing their attention on China. This does not mean, however, that potential interest in Japan as a partner in resolving global issues has diminished. On the contrary, there is revived interest in the strategic partnership with Japan, and this reality should encourage a new orientation of Japanese studies.
The fourth trend is the widening gap between academic works and the public's knowledge of Japan. Traditionally, there has been a certain intellectual link between academic studies on Japan and the promotion of understanding of Japan in general.
Recently, however, interest in and understanding of Japan has been increasingly divorced from some academic works on Japan. Young people's fascination with manga and anime has weakened, or at least blurred, the established link between some traditional types of Japanese studies and young intellectuals' interest in Japan. (This gap may partly be attributed to the growing "fragmentation" or "specialization" of Japanese studies, which may itself be viewed as part of a broader trend in many academic fields.)
Considering the trends described above, how should we develop policies to support the study of Japan? First, Japanese foundations and grant-making bodies should not only respond to the wishes and curiosity of people who are interested in Japan but also nurture and cultivate young people's "deeper" interest in Japan, particularly in its history, arts and literature.
Second, we should not focus on Japan in isolation. We must place Japanese studies in a wider comparative context and even encourage comparative studies that include, but do not necessarily focus on, Japan. This could mean expanding areas of scholarship on Japanese studies to include the study of other parts of Asia or even Europe. In this vein, we should promote, even within the context of "Japanese studies," joint international policy-oriented studies on global issues involving Japan.
Third, in order to bridge the gap between academic knowledge of Japan and the influence of manga, anime and other pop-culture phenomena prevalent among young people, we need to create programs that link Japanese studies at university level with high-school curricula in the fields of history and language.
In addition, we may have to develop courses that focus on subjects of greater interest to young people, such as sports, fashion and food. Studies on these subjects could be paired with programs that include demonstrations, performances, and other events held by foundations and organizations.
Kazuo Ogoura, professor of political science at Aoyama Gakuin University, is president of the Japan Foundation. He served as Japanese ambassador to Vietnam (1994-1995), South Korea (1997-1999) and France (2000-2002).
The Japan Times: March 23, 2006
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20060323a1.html
Special to The Japan Times
The world is changing rapidly under the influence of globalization. At the same time, the political, economic and even academic environment surrounding Japanese studies outside Japan has changed a great deal. Traditional motives for studying Japan, such as curiosity in the exotic, the perception of Japan as a menace, and anticipation of political conflicts with Japan, have largely been replaced by other incentives.
Grant-making organizations and Japanese academic and educational institutions should reorient their policies to respond to the new trends in Japanese studies abroad. In attempting to reorient their policies, the organizations concerned should first of all recognize the new trends surrounding Japanese studies around the world, particularly in the United States.
One such trend is the decline in the importance of area studies as opposed to interdisciplinary studies. Amid the growing conviction that comparative studies are necessary for analyzing and understanding Japan, scholars in political science, economics and even literature are increasingly placing Japanese studies in a global context.
A second observable trend is the inevitable tendency for international political and economic realities to affect academic studies. Two current examples that pertain to Japan are the comparative stagnation of the Japanese economy since the mid-1990s and the growing politico-military interdependence between Japan and the U.S. Consequently, there is in the U.S. little of the sense of threat or risk that once characterized Japan-U.S. relations. This implies that, unless we actively encourage the interest in Japan at American educational institutions, it will remain difficult to increase the number of students who pursue Japan-related studies.
The third trend we must consider is a change in U.S. strategic interests, which have shifted heavily toward the Middle East and adjacent regions over the past several years.
At the same time, American intellectuals have also been focusing their attention on China. This does not mean, however, that potential interest in Japan as a partner in resolving global issues has diminished. On the contrary, there is revived interest in the strategic partnership with Japan, and this reality should encourage a new orientation of Japanese studies.
The fourth trend is the widening gap between academic works and the public's knowledge of Japan. Traditionally, there has been a certain intellectual link between academic studies on Japan and the promotion of understanding of Japan in general.
Recently, however, interest in and understanding of Japan has been increasingly divorced from some academic works on Japan. Young people's fascination with manga and anime has weakened, or at least blurred, the established link between some traditional types of Japanese studies and young intellectuals' interest in Japan. (This gap may partly be attributed to the growing "fragmentation" or "specialization" of Japanese studies, which may itself be viewed as part of a broader trend in many academic fields.)
Considering the trends described above, how should we develop policies to support the study of Japan? First, Japanese foundations and grant-making bodies should not only respond to the wishes and curiosity of people who are interested in Japan but also nurture and cultivate young people's "deeper" interest in Japan, particularly in its history, arts and literature.
Second, we should not focus on Japan in isolation. We must place Japanese studies in a wider comparative context and even encourage comparative studies that include, but do not necessarily focus on, Japan. This could mean expanding areas of scholarship on Japanese studies to include the study of other parts of Asia or even Europe. In this vein, we should promote, even within the context of "Japanese studies," joint international policy-oriented studies on global issues involving Japan.
Third, in order to bridge the gap between academic knowledge of Japan and the influence of manga, anime and other pop-culture phenomena prevalent among young people, we need to create programs that link Japanese studies at university level with high-school curricula in the fields of history and language.
In addition, we may have to develop courses that focus on subjects of greater interest to young people, such as sports, fashion and food. Studies on these subjects could be paired with programs that include demonstrations, performances, and other events held by foundations and organizations.
Kazuo Ogoura, professor of political science at Aoyama Gakuin University, is president of the Japan Foundation. He served as Japanese ambassador to Vietnam (1994-1995), South Korea (1997-1999) and France (2000-2002).
The Japan Times: March 23, 2006
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20060323a1.html
Square Enix, Gakken to develop game software for jobs, education
Game software developer Square Enix Co. and publishing house Gakken Co. said Wednesday they will jointly develop computer game software that enables students and job seekers to study and learn professional skills.
The two will set up a new company, SG Lab Inc., on May 1 with Square Enix putting up 60 percent of the 10 million yen capital and Gakken the remainder.
Software developers at the new firm will write such educational software in response to specific orders to be placed by schools, businesses and local governments, the two said.
The firm will seek to post 1 billion yen in sales in the initial year of operations.
Computer games for school education and professional training are referred to as "serious games" in European countries and the United States.
Such games include ones to enable people to learn about the development of a range of humans' tools, as well as procedures for fire-extinguishing operations.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060322/kyodo/d8ggk1n02.html
The two will set up a new company, SG Lab Inc., on May 1 with Square Enix putting up 60 percent of the 10 million yen capital and Gakken the remainder.
Software developers at the new firm will write such educational software in response to specific orders to be placed by schools, businesses and local governments, the two said.
The firm will seek to post 1 billion yen in sales in the initial year of operations.
Computer games for school education and professional training are referred to as "serious games" in European countries and the United States.
Such games include ones to enable people to learn about the development of a range of humans' tools, as well as procedures for fire-extinguishing operations.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060322/kyodo/d8ggk1n02.html
80,000 youths successfully find jobs through 'Job Cafes'
About 80,000 out of 1.5 million young registrants have successfully found jobs through government-backed job-placement centers dubbed "job cafes" that have been set up in 20 of Japan's 47 prefectures, officials at the industry ministry said Wednesday at a symposium in Tokyo.
At the symposium, some 300 participants from the national and local governments as well as other persons involved reported the current status and future prospects for Job Cafes which the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare launched in 2004, together with industry leaders.
An official from Chiba Prefecture reported that they helped 165 registrants to get job offers in two weeks by setting a specific goal.
Officials from Yamaguchi Prefecture said their region creates teams of counselors to give job-seekers advice.
In addition, they discussed some schemes necessary for building bridges between youths, companies, and educational institutions.
The government set aside 6.75 billion yen to operate the job centers in fiscal 2005 ending this month.
Job cafes operate as "one-stop service centers" that offer consultations on what kind of jobs young people have an aptitude for and on internships at local companies, as well as providing job information.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060322/kyodo/d8ggm2003.html
At the symposium, some 300 participants from the national and local governments as well as other persons involved reported the current status and future prospects for Job Cafes which the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare launched in 2004, together with industry leaders.
An official from Chiba Prefecture reported that they helped 165 registrants to get job offers in two weeks by setting a specific goal.
Officials from Yamaguchi Prefecture said their region creates teams of counselors to give job-seekers advice.
In addition, they discussed some schemes necessary for building bridges between youths, companies, and educational institutions.
The government set aside 6.75 billion yen to operate the job centers in fiscal 2005 ending this month.
Job cafes operate as "one-stop service centers" that offer consultations on what kind of jobs young people have an aptitude for and on internships at local companies, as well as providing job information.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060322/kyodo/d8ggm2003.html
Why are Japanese poor at English?
By MIKE GUEST
As an English teacher living in Japan, I find it hard to escape the question. It is asked in schools, government-sponsored think-tanks, restaurants, bars, newspapers and online chat rooms: Why are the Japanese so poor at English?
I would like to offer some reasons for this. These reasons are largely cultural and, while it is both arrogant and pretentious to presume to be able to change a culture, understanding these factors may allow teachers to reassess or temper their methods and thereby help learners adopt more beneficial approaches.
Geographical, linguistic and psychological distance from the English-speaking world
Yes, the world is getting smaller due to the ease of international travel and modern communication tools like the Internet, but Japan’s distance from the English-speaking world cannot be underestimated.
Not only does having no contiguous border with another country heighten the psychological sense of distance, but linguistic fundamentals including the understanding of written/aural units such as syllables and sentences, parts of speech, and the widespread usage of set social speech formulas have little in common with English.
The belief that there are only two socio-cultural entities – Japan and “The World”
Although all Japanese are quite aware intellectually of the multiplicity of countries, cultures and languages, on a certain psychological level, there remains for many the belief that Japan is completely distinct from the rest of the world, which can be lumped together as a singular gaikoku.
Therefore, it is quite natural that the people in gaikoku speak English well because English is the lingua franca of gaikoku, unlike Japan. This worldview ends up being supported by the feeling that:
Real Japanese don’t speak English
On TV, one can often see interviews with prominent politicians, businessmen, or celebrities from non-English-speaking countries being conducted in English. This can contribute to a foreigners-speak-English-but-we-Japanese-don’t mentality.
This belief in a fundamental handicap vis-a-vis the rest of the world can inhibit Japanese learners in mastering English, since it fosters the notion that somehow English is not “right” for the Japanese or, worse, that the Japanese brain cannot process the language in the same way that “other people” can.
In fact, some prominent figures in Japan seem to take pride in not being skilled in English, as if it might take away from their “Japaneseness”.
The lack of a real need for English
People have been talking about internationalisation as being the catalyst for English study in Japan for some time now but, let’s face it, the average Japanese really doesn’t need English.
People who know that their destiny is to labour on a farm, in a local factory or in a nondescript office in the provinces are unlikely to see too much benefit in putting forward the amount of time and effort it takes to master English.
In short, there are few intrinsic or instrumental motivations for study in Japan. In many countries, fluency in English can mean a better-paying, more rewarding job or the chance to make a living from foreign tourists, but this is very rare in Japan. Perhaps some of this is due to:
The comprehensive Japanese publishing industry
I have an Indonesian friend who is very interested in jazz and progressive music. Since there is very little information available on these genres in his mother tongue, he has developed highly competent reading/writing skills in English, since that’s the only way he can get the information he craves and discuss it with others.
In Japan, though, there is copious information available in Japanese about every possible subject. Got a passion for Islamic pottery? A hankering for breeding bloodhounds? Look no further! It’s all available without leaving the mother tongue!
A cultural propensity towards reticence
This claim may sound preposterous to anyone who has watched a Japanese “wide show”, but it is safe to say that Japanese tradition doesn’t tend to see being articulate as a virtue and regards verbosity as suspicious.
Many common Japanese expressions and proverbs serve to reinforce this attitude, an attitude that would seem to work against skills in foreign languages.
The belief that perfection equals a lack of mistakes
Why speak or write if you are liable to make a mistake? Both Japanese teachers and learners of English seem obsessed with mistakes.
Personal letters from Japanese correspondents often contain the request: “Please correct my mistakes.” There is also a pervasive belief that even the smallest error in English renders an entire text as meaningless gobbledygook.
I’ve had very linguistically skilled Japanese colleagues who were shocked to find that I understood their “incorrect” English just fine.
Can one change these general cultural attitudes in a day? No. But to guide learners across the language divide, teachers should be cognisant of these factors and may want to address them in some way so that learners may be freed from some of their inhibitions in acquiring foreign languages. – The Daily Yomiuri / Asia News Network
The writer is an associate professor of English at the Medical College of Miyazaki University.
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/3/22/lifefocus/13589475&sec=lifefocus
As an English teacher living in Japan, I find it hard to escape the question. It is asked in schools, government-sponsored think-tanks, restaurants, bars, newspapers and online chat rooms: Why are the Japanese so poor at English?
I would like to offer some reasons for this. These reasons are largely cultural and, while it is both arrogant and pretentious to presume to be able to change a culture, understanding these factors may allow teachers to reassess or temper their methods and thereby help learners adopt more beneficial approaches.
Geographical, linguistic and psychological distance from the English-speaking world
Yes, the world is getting smaller due to the ease of international travel and modern communication tools like the Internet, but Japan’s distance from the English-speaking world cannot be underestimated.
Not only does having no contiguous border with another country heighten the psychological sense of distance, but linguistic fundamentals including the understanding of written/aural units such as syllables and sentences, parts of speech, and the widespread usage of set social speech formulas have little in common with English.
The belief that there are only two socio-cultural entities – Japan and “The World”
Although all Japanese are quite aware intellectually of the multiplicity of countries, cultures and languages, on a certain psychological level, there remains for many the belief that Japan is completely distinct from the rest of the world, which can be lumped together as a singular gaikoku.
Therefore, it is quite natural that the people in gaikoku speak English well because English is the lingua franca of gaikoku, unlike Japan. This worldview ends up being supported by the feeling that:
Real Japanese don’t speak English
On TV, one can often see interviews with prominent politicians, businessmen, or celebrities from non-English-speaking countries being conducted in English. This can contribute to a foreigners-speak-English-but-we-Japanese-don’t mentality.
This belief in a fundamental handicap vis-a-vis the rest of the world can inhibit Japanese learners in mastering English, since it fosters the notion that somehow English is not “right” for the Japanese or, worse, that the Japanese brain cannot process the language in the same way that “other people” can.
In fact, some prominent figures in Japan seem to take pride in not being skilled in English, as if it might take away from their “Japaneseness”.
The lack of a real need for English
People have been talking about internationalisation as being the catalyst for English study in Japan for some time now but, let’s face it, the average Japanese really doesn’t need English.
People who know that their destiny is to labour on a farm, in a local factory or in a nondescript office in the provinces are unlikely to see too much benefit in putting forward the amount of time and effort it takes to master English.
In short, there are few intrinsic or instrumental motivations for study in Japan. In many countries, fluency in English can mean a better-paying, more rewarding job or the chance to make a living from foreign tourists, but this is very rare in Japan. Perhaps some of this is due to:
The comprehensive Japanese publishing industry
I have an Indonesian friend who is very interested in jazz and progressive music. Since there is very little information available on these genres in his mother tongue, he has developed highly competent reading/writing skills in English, since that’s the only way he can get the information he craves and discuss it with others.
In Japan, though, there is copious information available in Japanese about every possible subject. Got a passion for Islamic pottery? A hankering for breeding bloodhounds? Look no further! It’s all available without leaving the mother tongue!
A cultural propensity towards reticence
This claim may sound preposterous to anyone who has watched a Japanese “wide show”, but it is safe to say that Japanese tradition doesn’t tend to see being articulate as a virtue and regards verbosity as suspicious.
Many common Japanese expressions and proverbs serve to reinforce this attitude, an attitude that would seem to work against skills in foreign languages.
The belief that perfection equals a lack of mistakes
Why speak or write if you are liable to make a mistake? Both Japanese teachers and learners of English seem obsessed with mistakes.
Personal letters from Japanese correspondents often contain the request: “Please correct my mistakes.” There is also a pervasive belief that even the smallest error in English renders an entire text as meaningless gobbledygook.
I’ve had very linguistically skilled Japanese colleagues who were shocked to find that I understood their “incorrect” English just fine.
Can one change these general cultural attitudes in a day? No. But to guide learners across the language divide, teachers should be cognisant of these factors and may want to address them in some way so that learners may be freed from some of their inhibitions in acquiring foreign languages. – The Daily Yomiuri / Asia News Network
The writer is an associate professor of English at the Medical College of Miyazaki University.
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/3/22/lifefocus/13589475&sec=lifefocus
Japan calling: Indian Graduates who know English
NEW DELHI, MARCH 21: Good communication skills in English and a graduation degree of any stream is what it’ll take you to land a plum job in Japan.
For the first time, the Government of Japan is inviting graduates under 40 years of age to teach English in Japan. The promised salary: Rs 14.5 lakh per annum.
The teachers are meant to be representatives of India, who will foster ‘‘respect and understanding for India among Japanese students”. And, they’ll be posted in local government areas in Japan and not metropolitan cities. Says Counsellor, Embassy of Japan, Toshio Yamamoto, ‘‘We will post the Indian teachers in areas with local government— as opposed to metros— as we believe they will be more visible there among students and the community. We hope this programme will be taken forward by Japanese students coming to India for further studies.’’
Around 30 Indian teachers will be hired this year, and with the success of the programme, the number is expected to double. The Embassy will chiefly be working through Delhi, personally meeting the candidates after they clear the initial stages.
The programme will be carried out under the aegis of the Japanese Teaching and Exchange (JET) Programme. At present, posts of Assistant Language Teachers in elementary and secondary Schools (both Public and Private) or Coordinators for International Relations will be offered in selected local government offices in Japan.
‘‘Before this, we only invited English teachers from countries where English is the native language like the US and Canada. But we realised that the high level of English spoken by Indians can be useful for us and help both countries,’’ said Yamamoto.
There is another objective as well: economics. ‘‘In a recent survey done in Japan, India has emerged as the second most favoured business destination for the Japanese people following China. “At present, Indo-Japanese business is 1/30th of Japanese-Chinese business. We want to raise this figure to atleast one- third,’’ he adds.
The Japanese Government is also inviting some 50 students to study in Japan under the Monbusho scholarship. And from Japan too, Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers — including Judo teachers — will be come to teach here. Interestingly, CBSE has introduced the study of Japanese language in middle schools this year.
http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=121149
For the first time, the Government of Japan is inviting graduates under 40 years of age to teach English in Japan. The promised salary: Rs 14.5 lakh per annum.
The teachers are meant to be representatives of India, who will foster ‘‘respect and understanding for India among Japanese students”. And, they’ll be posted in local government areas in Japan and not metropolitan cities. Says Counsellor, Embassy of Japan, Toshio Yamamoto, ‘‘We will post the Indian teachers in areas with local government— as opposed to metros— as we believe they will be more visible there among students and the community. We hope this programme will be taken forward by Japanese students coming to India for further studies.’’
Around 30 Indian teachers will be hired this year, and with the success of the programme, the number is expected to double. The Embassy will chiefly be working through Delhi, personally meeting the candidates after they clear the initial stages.
The programme will be carried out under the aegis of the Japanese Teaching and Exchange (JET) Programme. At present, posts of Assistant Language Teachers in elementary and secondary Schools (both Public and Private) or Coordinators for International Relations will be offered in selected local government offices in Japan.
‘‘Before this, we only invited English teachers from countries where English is the native language like the US and Canada. But we realised that the high level of English spoken by Indians can be useful for us and help both countries,’’ said Yamamoto.
There is another objective as well: economics. ‘‘In a recent survey done in Japan, India has emerged as the second most favoured business destination for the Japanese people following China. “At present, Indo-Japanese business is 1/30th of Japanese-Chinese business. We want to raise this figure to atleast one- third,’’ he adds.
The Japanese Government is also inviting some 50 students to study in Japan under the Monbusho scholarship. And from Japan too, Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers — including Judo teachers — will be come to teach here. Interestingly, CBSE has introduced the study of Japanese language in middle schools this year.
http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=121149
Educational Renaissance/ Thinking skills begin with 'Why?' at juku
Kazuya Sekiguchi Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
This is an excerpt from an installment of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series, continued from last week, focuses on helping children develop communication skills.
OSAKA--Juku cram schools are basically for helping students catch up with school studies or pass entrance examinations. However, one juku chain has gone further by introducing a course to help its students improve their thinking skills through dialogue-based classes.
Ruijuku, a chain that operates 25 branches in Osaka Prefecture, launched what it calls a "honkaku (full-scale) course" last year.
A recent class in the course, held at the main office of the chain in Yodogawa Ward, Osaka, began with a Japanese translation of a poem by the famous Chinese poet Tu Fu (712-770).
"Kuni yaburete sanga ari," lecturer Satoru Yano, 24, recited. (The line means, "Though the nation has been defeated, the hills and rivers remain as they were.") The students repeated the words after him, before writing the lines down.
The course aims at helping children develop "full-scale" thinking skills that enable them to come up with flexible ideas. In a standard 90-minute class, the first 30 minutes are dedicated to listening comprehension and speaking--the reciting of the Chinese poem being one such example.
The students also practice deep breathing to improve their concentration, before moving on to discussion sessions between the lecturer and the students on various topics.
"When people talk about environmental problems, what are the issues they raise?" Yano asked.
"Acid rain." "Destroying the ozone layer." "Decreasing rain forests." The students responded in quick succession. Then the lecturer posed the next question. "Well, why does acid rain happen?"
The day's class was attended by 25 students, ranging from third-year primary school to second-year middle school students. The wide range of ages reflects Ruijuku's belief that it is important for children to learn about opinions that they would not ordinarily hear in discussions among children of their own age group. The chain initially recruited students from the fourth-year of primary school to those of high school age for its honkaku course.
With classes held once a week, the course has attracted about 160 students. Ruijuku aims at increasing the number to about 400 for the new school year starting next month.
Topics featured in the course generally deal with social issues or topics that have something to do with school subjects.
For example, the concept of "burning" is featured in the course as something related to science. The challenge to students goes as follows: "To put out something burning, you should decrease the temperature of the object by pouring water on it. However, there is a metal that can also burn in water--even below the freezing point. Why is this possible?"
The honkaku course pursues this kind of "why?" question giving students time to look into something that they would not usually be asked to do.
Since its establishment in 1975, Ruijuku has become known for sending many students to prestigious public high schools in the Osaka area. However, Koji Kitamura, 45, head of the chain's public relations office, pointed out that what children study at school and for entrance examinations has drifted far apart from what they need to survive in real-life business and social situations.
"We wanted to help our students develop full-scale thinking skills that would benefit them in the future," Kitamura said in explaining why his juku launched its honkaku course. "A juku is a place that should make up for what schools lack. Consequently, the roles juku are supposed to play have been changing."
Ruijuku formed a project team consisting of its younger lecturers, whose discussions eventually produced the idea of launching dialogue-based classes.
"Children can develop their thinking skills through dialogues by which they accept others' opinions and express their own. Expressing their ideas can itself be good training for students," Kitamura said, quoting some of the project team's conclusions.
"When the students get feedback on their own ideas, it can be very motivating," said Nobuhiro Yasunishi, 32, one of the lecturers in charge of the course.
Discussions in the honkaku course can go beyond the classroom. The students can contribute new opinions and questions they come up with outside the classroom to a Web site exclusively for the course--a process that requires the dialogue skills necessary to convince others.
The Web site will be opened for general access beginning next month, involving the public in the children's discussions.
School focuses on self-expression skills with systematic curriculum
KANAZAWA--Divided into groups of three, first-graders at Yonaizumi Primary School began reading children's books to one another one day in early February.
"Please read in a big voice and in a way your friends can understand with ease," their teacher reminded them from time to time.
This was an exercise in preparation for an event later that month to welcome preschoolers who will enroll at the primary school next month. The school hoped the exercise would also present an opportunity for students to improve their ability to express themselves.
The public primary school has set self-expression skills at the top of its educational agenda for this school year and hopes to help its students develop these skills in every aspect of their school life under a systematic curriculum the school has devised.
In another class the same day, second graders were practicing a song they would perform for a graduation ceremony this month. Rather than giving a direct explanation of the idea of a "crescendo"--a steady increase in volume--the music teacher asked the children for their opinions.
"Before singing the song, let's think about which parts you should put your feelings into," the teacher said.
Essay writing provides another example of the school's self-expression policy. When Yonaizumi students write essays, they are encouraged to correct one another's work and discuss their essays together. In this way students can improve their skills of writing and dialogue at the same time.
Yet another opportunity for self-expression comes in the form of one-minute speeches students are encouraged to make during the 20-minute homeroom period before the day's first class.
Under its systematic curriculum, the school has also compiled a clear guide as to what activities should be used to help develop self-expression skills, with arrows suggesting which of these activities are related.
Second graders taking a Japanese class in September discussed how you could talk to your friends so they understood you more easily. A social ethics class practiced giving compliments to one another in October.
Since it was established in 1983, Yonaizumi Primary School has emphasized the importance of its Japanese classes. Despite this clear focus, though, the school noticed that many students remained relatively poor at expressing their own experiences and ideas.
"We found that our traditional methodology had reached a dead end when it came to further improving their abilities," said Principal Yasuhiro Kanaya, 53, reflecting on the time when he was transferred to the school in 2002 as vice principal.
During the summer vacation that year, the school's 24 teachers read between them all 293 published textbooks available for primary school students. Each teacher wrote a paper on the books he or she had read.
The teachers' reports revealed that while every textbook featured units that had something to do with self-expression, they were not well organized--with some contents overlapping not just classes but actual grades.
Then the school formed a committee to review the school's textbooks and activities so a more systematic curriculum promoting self-expression could be formulated.
"It was tough going until we began to see how [the textbooks' contents and school activities] could be related to one other, from one grade to another, or among subjects," said Hiroshi Hashi, 44, the teacher in charge of the project at that time.
Even after compiling the curriculum, the school has still been reviewing it.
"For the past year, I can say that our students have improved their skills far beyond our initial expectations partly because the teachers themselves have also improved their teaching skills," Kanaya said. "Ultimately, the children have also been improving academic skills in other subjects than the mother tongue."
(Mar. 21, 2006)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20060321TDY16001.htm
This is an excerpt from an installment of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series, continued from last week, focuses on helping children develop communication skills.
OSAKA--Juku cram schools are basically for helping students catch up with school studies or pass entrance examinations. However, one juku chain has gone further by introducing a course to help its students improve their thinking skills through dialogue-based classes.
Ruijuku, a chain that operates 25 branches in Osaka Prefecture, launched what it calls a "honkaku (full-scale) course" last year.
A recent class in the course, held at the main office of the chain in Yodogawa Ward, Osaka, began with a Japanese translation of a poem by the famous Chinese poet Tu Fu (712-770).
"Kuni yaburete sanga ari," lecturer Satoru Yano, 24, recited. (The line means, "Though the nation has been defeated, the hills and rivers remain as they were.") The students repeated the words after him, before writing the lines down.
The course aims at helping children develop "full-scale" thinking skills that enable them to come up with flexible ideas. In a standard 90-minute class, the first 30 minutes are dedicated to listening comprehension and speaking--the reciting of the Chinese poem being one such example.
The students also practice deep breathing to improve their concentration, before moving on to discussion sessions between the lecturer and the students on various topics.
"When people talk about environmental problems, what are the issues they raise?" Yano asked.
"Acid rain." "Destroying the ozone layer." "Decreasing rain forests." The students responded in quick succession. Then the lecturer posed the next question. "Well, why does acid rain happen?"
The day's class was attended by 25 students, ranging from third-year primary school to second-year middle school students. The wide range of ages reflects Ruijuku's belief that it is important for children to learn about opinions that they would not ordinarily hear in discussions among children of their own age group. The chain initially recruited students from the fourth-year of primary school to those of high school age for its honkaku course.
With classes held once a week, the course has attracted about 160 students. Ruijuku aims at increasing the number to about 400 for the new school year starting next month.
Topics featured in the course generally deal with social issues or topics that have something to do with school subjects.
For example, the concept of "burning" is featured in the course as something related to science. The challenge to students goes as follows: "To put out something burning, you should decrease the temperature of the object by pouring water on it. However, there is a metal that can also burn in water--even below the freezing point. Why is this possible?"
The honkaku course pursues this kind of "why?" question giving students time to look into something that they would not usually be asked to do.
Since its establishment in 1975, Ruijuku has become known for sending many students to prestigious public high schools in the Osaka area. However, Koji Kitamura, 45, head of the chain's public relations office, pointed out that what children study at school and for entrance examinations has drifted far apart from what they need to survive in real-life business and social situations.
"We wanted to help our students develop full-scale thinking skills that would benefit them in the future," Kitamura said in explaining why his juku launched its honkaku course. "A juku is a place that should make up for what schools lack. Consequently, the roles juku are supposed to play have been changing."
Ruijuku formed a project team consisting of its younger lecturers, whose discussions eventually produced the idea of launching dialogue-based classes.
"Children can develop their thinking skills through dialogues by which they accept others' opinions and express their own. Expressing their ideas can itself be good training for students," Kitamura said, quoting some of the project team's conclusions.
"When the students get feedback on their own ideas, it can be very motivating," said Nobuhiro Yasunishi, 32, one of the lecturers in charge of the course.
Discussions in the honkaku course can go beyond the classroom. The students can contribute new opinions and questions they come up with outside the classroom to a Web site exclusively for the course--a process that requires the dialogue skills necessary to convince others.
The Web site will be opened for general access beginning next month, involving the public in the children's discussions.
School focuses on self-expression skills with systematic curriculum
KANAZAWA--Divided into groups of three, first-graders at Yonaizumi Primary School began reading children's books to one another one day in early February.
"Please read in a big voice and in a way your friends can understand with ease," their teacher reminded them from time to time.
This was an exercise in preparation for an event later that month to welcome preschoolers who will enroll at the primary school next month. The school hoped the exercise would also present an opportunity for students to improve their ability to express themselves.
The public primary school has set self-expression skills at the top of its educational agenda for this school year and hopes to help its students develop these skills in every aspect of their school life under a systematic curriculum the school has devised.
In another class the same day, second graders were practicing a song they would perform for a graduation ceremony this month. Rather than giving a direct explanation of the idea of a "crescendo"--a steady increase in volume--the music teacher asked the children for their opinions.
"Before singing the song, let's think about which parts you should put your feelings into," the teacher said.
Essay writing provides another example of the school's self-expression policy. When Yonaizumi students write essays, they are encouraged to correct one another's work and discuss their essays together. In this way students can improve their skills of writing and dialogue at the same time.
Yet another opportunity for self-expression comes in the form of one-minute speeches students are encouraged to make during the 20-minute homeroom period before the day's first class.
Under its systematic curriculum, the school has also compiled a clear guide as to what activities should be used to help develop self-expression skills, with arrows suggesting which of these activities are related.
Second graders taking a Japanese class in September discussed how you could talk to your friends so they understood you more easily. A social ethics class practiced giving compliments to one another in October.
Since it was established in 1983, Yonaizumi Primary School has emphasized the importance of its Japanese classes. Despite this clear focus, though, the school noticed that many students remained relatively poor at expressing their own experiences and ideas.
"We found that our traditional methodology had reached a dead end when it came to further improving their abilities," said Principal Yasuhiro Kanaya, 53, reflecting on the time when he was transferred to the school in 2002 as vice principal.
During the summer vacation that year, the school's 24 teachers read between them all 293 published textbooks available for primary school students. Each teacher wrote a paper on the books he or she had read.
The teachers' reports revealed that while every textbook featured units that had something to do with self-expression, they were not well organized--with some contents overlapping not just classes but actual grades.
Then the school formed a committee to review the school's textbooks and activities so a more systematic curriculum promoting self-expression could be formulated.
"It was tough going until we began to see how [the textbooks' contents and school activities] could be related to one other, from one grade to another, or among subjects," said Hiroshi Hashi, 44, the teacher in charge of the project at that time.
Even after compiling the curriculum, the school has still been reviewing it.
"For the past year, I can say that our students have improved their skills far beyond our initial expectations partly because the teachers themselves have also improved their teaching skills," Kanaya said. "Ultimately, the children have also been improving academic skills in other subjects than the mother tongue."
(Mar. 21, 2006)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20060321TDY16001.htm
Monday, March 20, 2006
Nissan pledges 1.5 mil. pounds for Japanese studies in Britain
Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn pledged Friday a 1.5 million pound ($2.6 million) donation to further the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies at Oxford University.
"We are very proud of our association with the institute and to have this opportunity to join the celebration of its 25th anniversary. I am encouraged to see that Nissan's early support has helped the institute gather momentum," Ghosn said in a statement released before the official announcement.
A ceremony for students was due to be held at the university --situated approximately 50 miles northwest of London -- later in the day in order to mark the time past since the institute was founded in 1981 following an initial donation from Nissan.
The institute -- which is already recognized across Europe as one of the leading academic centers focused on the study of modern Japan and is now aiming for worldwide recognition -- will receive the 1.5 million pound Nissan endowment over a period of three years
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060317/kyodo/d8gdc7185.html
"We are very proud of our association with the institute and to have this opportunity to join the celebration of its 25th anniversary. I am encouraged to see that Nissan's early support has helped the institute gather momentum," Ghosn said in a statement released before the official announcement.
A ceremony for students was due to be held at the university --situated approximately 50 miles northwest of London -- later in the day in order to mark the time past since the institute was founded in 1981 following an initial donation from Nissan.
The institute -- which is already recognized across Europe as one of the leading academic centers focused on the study of modern Japan and is now aiming for worldwide recognition -- will receive the 1.5 million pound Nissan endowment over a period of three years
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060317/kyodo/d8gdc7185.html
Tohoku University to open advanced research institute in April
Tohoku University, one of the nation's oldest national universities, announced Friday the opening in April of an advanced institute for research and education for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers that university officials hope will compete with premier Western institutions of higher learning.
At the institute, researchers will engage in studies in one of the five interdisciplinary categories the university has created, covering life and biomedical sciences, information technology, languages and humanities.
Akihisa Inoue, vice president of the university based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, said the institute will offer a unique system of education that spans a broad range of academic disciplines that is unprecedented in Japan.
"To make contributions to solve such problems as environmental destruction, there is a need for people to undertake research in varied fields like humanities or life science. The new institute will address such needs in society," said Hitoshi Onishi, executive vice president of the university.
The new entity will consist of the Institute for International Advanced Research and Education, which will be up and running in April to offer postgraduate courses. Another separate research institute will open in April 2007, according to university officials.
About 30 holders of doctorates will be selected to attend the research institute as special researchers, with admission open to researchers from abroad as well, they said.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060317/kyodo/d8gdb5t00.html
At the institute, researchers will engage in studies in one of the five interdisciplinary categories the university has created, covering life and biomedical sciences, information technology, languages and humanities.
Akihisa Inoue, vice president of the university based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, said the institute will offer a unique system of education that spans a broad range of academic disciplines that is unprecedented in Japan.
"To make contributions to solve such problems as environmental destruction, there is a need for people to undertake research in varied fields like humanities or life science. The new institute will address such needs in society," said Hitoshi Onishi, executive vice president of the university.
The new entity will consist of the Institute for International Advanced Research and Education, which will be up and running in April to offer postgraduate courses. Another separate research institute will open in April 2007, according to university officials.
About 30 holders of doctorates will be selected to attend the research institute as special researchers, with admission open to researchers from abroad as well, they said.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060317/kyodo/d8gdb5t00.html
English taught in over 90 percent of elementary schools
More than 90 percent of Japan's public elementary schools have classes involving listening and speaking in English, a government poll has shown.
A total of 20,803 elementary schools (93.6 percent) run this kind of class, according to the survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology, whose results were released Thursday. The percentage is 1.5 points higher than the previous poll.
Sixth-graders have 13.7 hours of English classes a year on average, the poll shows.
Officials from most elementary schools said that they carried out classes by featuring songs and games for students to become familiar with the language.
In more than 90 percent of the schools, homeroom teachers teach English classes. Native-speaking assistant language teachers (ALTs) took part in these classes in more than 60 percent of the schools.
Governmental education guidelines provide that schools can have foreign language activities as part of education for international understanding. (Mainichi)
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060317p2a00m0na001000c.html
A total of 20,803 elementary schools (93.6 percent) run this kind of class, according to the survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology, whose results were released Thursday. The percentage is 1.5 points higher than the previous poll.
Sixth-graders have 13.7 hours of English classes a year on average, the poll shows.
Officials from most elementary schools said that they carried out classes by featuring songs and games for students to become familiar with the language.
In more than 90 percent of the schools, homeroom teachers teach English classes. Native-speaking assistant language teachers (ALTs) took part in these classes in more than 60 percent of the schools.
Governmental education guidelines provide that schools can have foreign language activities as part of education for international understanding. (Mainichi)
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060317p2a00m0na001000c.html
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Hard lessons in broken English
A working holiday teaching English in Japan is a dream that can become a nightmare, writes Deborah Cameron.
DAVID Dormon, a former department store salesman from Sydney, signed up to teach English in Japan and look where it got him: fighting a lawsuit against a powerful company, in a battle of wills with a supervisor who kept a shame file and grasping at an insecure visa. The lawsuit - over demotion, a pay cut and intimidation - concluded with a win and compensation for Dormon.
But he resigned anyway, ending the humiliation of dealing with Japan's leviathan language school, Nova, the country's biggest employer of foreigners. "I felt very stressed, alone and unappreciated and I was very happy to get out because I was hating every moment," he says.
His was an experience that is becoming increasingly representative for Australian teachers in Japan. "Australians are being exploited as English teachers in Japan, especially by Nova," he says.
As with working holidays in Europe or North America, teaching English has become a rite of passage for thousands of Australians in their 20s.
Nova's head of overseas recruitment, Stephen Farley, an Australian, denies Nova is unfair to its employees and says there were faults on Dorman's side, but it ended the legal action to avoid further costs.
English tuition in Japan is a billion-dollar business. Between January and November last year private language schools earned 110 billion yen ($1.2 billion) from fees and book sales, Japan's Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry says.
English is also being taught in corporate programs, through do-it-yourself tapes and texts, conversation clubs and loose arrangements with English-speaking friends. Last year 21 per cent of Japan's five-year olds were enrolled in private English conversation classes, a survey by Benesse Corp, a publisher and operator of the Berlitz language school, shows.
The high level of spending on private language colleges does not include the expense of university study or government spending on six years of compulsory English tuition in schools.
There are never fewer than 700,000 students in private tuition in Japan, most of them adult.
Students buy lesson time in packages of up to 300 sessions, sometimes financing the cost with loans from credit agencies allied to schools. Last March, a particularly buoyant month coinciding with the traditional recruiting season by big companies, saw 46,000 new students enrol.
English skills are a plus for job hunters, and recruits are often required to sit for the Test of English for International Communication, a recognised proficiency measure. In fact, Japan's mania for results has been something of a boon for the test, with Japan and South Korea accounting for 81 per cent of all of its candidates worldwide.
Japan's test score for reading and comprehension was the lowest in a group that included the rest of Asia, South America, Africa, North America and Europe. Despite ferocious national effort, English is less widely and competently spoken in Japan than it is, say, in Indonesia or Thailand. Even after years of school study, graduates lack confidence and find very few mentors in public life.
Senior ministers, including those who are fluent, do not set examples by using English and the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is apparently unable to converse, though he attended the London School of Economics. Even small talk at private dinners with leaders such as John Howard or George Bush is via an interpreter.
Into this tangled environment walk hundreds of young Australians every year, convinced they can educate people and make good money. Of the 1000 who travel on working holiday visas to Japan, it is a fair bet most are destined for jobs in language teaching. Together with hundreds more on year-long work visas, they top up the pool of 12,000 instructors in Japan's private language schools.
Nova, the biggest school with the highest profile, says it employed between 5000 and 6000 instructors in 2004. There were 3000 new recruits that year and 30 per cent were Australians, Farley says. Those in the industry say Australians are its backbone.
A vital mechanism for maintaining the flow of instructors is a visa system that sets few barriers and requires no teaching qualifications. "You've got a TAFE woodworking degree? Excellent," says Dorman.
Japan, which has no immigration policy and is wary of letting in too many foreigners, has devised a convenient array of visas and training schemes enabling businesses to import labour. The most notorious - the entertainer visa - is the figleaf that allows bars to recruit prostitutes and hostesses from the Philippines and eastern Europe. In 2004 the US State Department put Japan on its people-trafficking watch list because of the way these visa arrangements compromised the rights of those who took the bait.
While there is no evidence that young Australian language instructors are getting sucked into the black economy, veterans of the English-teaching industry say that they are vulnerable financially. As well as that, the work is mind-numbing. Past and present teachers also warn of inadequate health and medical insurance and of concerns with workers compensation cover.
Jim Richards, 34, a former information technology worker from Wahroonga, has spent three years teaching English in Japan and says there are many traps. "A lot of people see the advertisements … and think it will be like schoolroom teaching and lots of fun, but when you get here it is more like doing factory line work," he says. "The whole teaching-English-in-Japan thing is a complete fraud and the experience can be quite bitter."
Recruits expecting excitement find monotony. The welcome mat is in reality a stopwatch-driven classroom that allots about six minutes of "free time" between lessons, a couple of minutes "warm-up" with students and a 40-minute class that must be done word-for-word from company textbooks.
Richards's advice to new hands is to think about going to China, South Korea or elsewhere in Asia. But for anyone set on working in Japan, the Nova language school should be the last option, he says. "If you come over with Nova then stay for six or seven months and start looking for another job." Once you find one, resign, and leave before the visa expires.
New teachers should also bring at least $2000 in savings because it is almost impossible to settle in and survive on the 200,000 yen ($2200) monthly starting wage, Richards said.
Richards resigned from Nova after getting fed up and now works at FCC in Fukuoka, which he says is better.
Farley says the majority of its Australian recruits were employed on full visas and not under work holiday arrangements. He says the Nova workforce is happy and that most people stay for about a year, although between 5 and 10 per cent quit within six months because they did not like the job or regretted the move to Japan.
Nova does not provide medical and health insurance for foreign workers but has a worker's compensation policy comparable to Australia's, he says. The company advised all recruits to bring 120,000 yen because it took up to six weeks, for the Japanese salary cycle to kick in.
Simon Hitchens, 35, from Perth, is another Nova critic. After several years of service, he was not offered a new contract by Nova when he revealed his union membership, he says. Nova summarily relocated him to another office and he was asked to leave company housing, he says.
Kara Harris, 28, an American, also had a sour experience. She says she was in negotiations with Nova over her sixth consecutive contract when she asked to be made permanent. In reply the company offered her a 12-month extension. When Harris went to the union, Nova responded with a list of accusations including that she was unco-operative, hostile to other staff, had fallen asleep during work and was a poor dresser.
Successive courts have since found that Harris was unfairly treated by Nova, and she has negotiated a financial settlement. She is returning to the US where she will study labour law.
Farley denies that Nova objects to unions or singles out union members. Very few employees were affiliated with a union, he said, but "if there are problems people should come and talk to me about it".
For teachers including David Dormon, the end can be especially drawn-out. Two years ago, when he was 30, Dormon was penalised financially and demoted for going out with a 21-year-old student at the school. He was also transferred to another branch.
Even though he says he worked hard to redeem himself, more complaints about him piled up in a shame file kept on him by a supervisor and there were new rebukes. The end came in an Osaka court-supervised settlement that gave Dormon compensation and a reference letter outlining his commendable record.
"The court case was nothing more than me fighting against something wrongly done to me," Dormon says. "I was disgusted by their actions. I felt very wronged. I realised very quickly that all the assumptions that I had about my rights as an employee and as a person did not exist in Japan."
http://smh.com.au/news/world/hard-lessons-in-broken-english/2006/03/14/1142098460885.html
DAVID Dormon, a former department store salesman from Sydney, signed up to teach English in Japan and look where it got him: fighting a lawsuit against a powerful company, in a battle of wills with a supervisor who kept a shame file and grasping at an insecure visa. The lawsuit - over demotion, a pay cut and intimidation - concluded with a win and compensation for Dormon.
But he resigned anyway, ending the humiliation of dealing with Japan's leviathan language school, Nova, the country's biggest employer of foreigners. "I felt very stressed, alone and unappreciated and I was very happy to get out because I was hating every moment," he says.
His was an experience that is becoming increasingly representative for Australian teachers in Japan. "Australians are being exploited as English teachers in Japan, especially by Nova," he says.
As with working holidays in Europe or North America, teaching English has become a rite of passage for thousands of Australians in their 20s.
Nova's head of overseas recruitment, Stephen Farley, an Australian, denies Nova is unfair to its employees and says there were faults on Dorman's side, but it ended the legal action to avoid further costs.
English tuition in Japan is a billion-dollar business. Between January and November last year private language schools earned 110 billion yen ($1.2 billion) from fees and book sales, Japan's Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry says.
English is also being taught in corporate programs, through do-it-yourself tapes and texts, conversation clubs and loose arrangements with English-speaking friends. Last year 21 per cent of Japan's five-year olds were enrolled in private English conversation classes, a survey by Benesse Corp, a publisher and operator of the Berlitz language school, shows.
The high level of spending on private language colleges does not include the expense of university study or government spending on six years of compulsory English tuition in schools.
There are never fewer than 700,000 students in private tuition in Japan, most of them adult.
Students buy lesson time in packages of up to 300 sessions, sometimes financing the cost with loans from credit agencies allied to schools. Last March, a particularly buoyant month coinciding with the traditional recruiting season by big companies, saw 46,000 new students enrol.
English skills are a plus for job hunters, and recruits are often required to sit for the Test of English for International Communication, a recognised proficiency measure. In fact, Japan's mania for results has been something of a boon for the test, with Japan and South Korea accounting for 81 per cent of all of its candidates worldwide.
Japan's test score for reading and comprehension was the lowest in a group that included the rest of Asia, South America, Africa, North America and Europe. Despite ferocious national effort, English is less widely and competently spoken in Japan than it is, say, in Indonesia or Thailand. Even after years of school study, graduates lack confidence and find very few mentors in public life.
Senior ministers, including those who are fluent, do not set examples by using English and the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is apparently unable to converse, though he attended the London School of Economics. Even small talk at private dinners with leaders such as John Howard or George Bush is via an interpreter.
Into this tangled environment walk hundreds of young Australians every year, convinced they can educate people and make good money. Of the 1000 who travel on working holiday visas to Japan, it is a fair bet most are destined for jobs in language teaching. Together with hundreds more on year-long work visas, they top up the pool of 12,000 instructors in Japan's private language schools.
Nova, the biggest school with the highest profile, says it employed between 5000 and 6000 instructors in 2004. There were 3000 new recruits that year and 30 per cent were Australians, Farley says. Those in the industry say Australians are its backbone.
A vital mechanism for maintaining the flow of instructors is a visa system that sets few barriers and requires no teaching qualifications. "You've got a TAFE woodworking degree? Excellent," says Dorman.
Japan, which has no immigration policy and is wary of letting in too many foreigners, has devised a convenient array of visas and training schemes enabling businesses to import labour. The most notorious - the entertainer visa - is the figleaf that allows bars to recruit prostitutes and hostesses from the Philippines and eastern Europe. In 2004 the US State Department put Japan on its people-trafficking watch list because of the way these visa arrangements compromised the rights of those who took the bait.
While there is no evidence that young Australian language instructors are getting sucked into the black economy, veterans of the English-teaching industry say that they are vulnerable financially. As well as that, the work is mind-numbing. Past and present teachers also warn of inadequate health and medical insurance and of concerns with workers compensation cover.
Jim Richards, 34, a former information technology worker from Wahroonga, has spent three years teaching English in Japan and says there are many traps. "A lot of people see the advertisements … and think it will be like schoolroom teaching and lots of fun, but when you get here it is more like doing factory line work," he says. "The whole teaching-English-in-Japan thing is a complete fraud and the experience can be quite bitter."
Recruits expecting excitement find monotony. The welcome mat is in reality a stopwatch-driven classroom that allots about six minutes of "free time" between lessons, a couple of minutes "warm-up" with students and a 40-minute class that must be done word-for-word from company textbooks.
Richards's advice to new hands is to think about going to China, South Korea or elsewhere in Asia. But for anyone set on working in Japan, the Nova language school should be the last option, he says. "If you come over with Nova then stay for six or seven months and start looking for another job." Once you find one, resign, and leave before the visa expires.
New teachers should also bring at least $2000 in savings because it is almost impossible to settle in and survive on the 200,000 yen ($2200) monthly starting wage, Richards said.
Richards resigned from Nova after getting fed up and now works at FCC in Fukuoka, which he says is better.
Farley says the majority of its Australian recruits were employed on full visas and not under work holiday arrangements. He says the Nova workforce is happy and that most people stay for about a year, although between 5 and 10 per cent quit within six months because they did not like the job or regretted the move to Japan.
Nova does not provide medical and health insurance for foreign workers but has a worker's compensation policy comparable to Australia's, he says. The company advised all recruits to bring 120,000 yen because it took up to six weeks, for the Japanese salary cycle to kick in.
Simon Hitchens, 35, from Perth, is another Nova critic. After several years of service, he was not offered a new contract by Nova when he revealed his union membership, he says. Nova summarily relocated him to another office and he was asked to leave company housing, he says.
Kara Harris, 28, an American, also had a sour experience. She says she was in negotiations with Nova over her sixth consecutive contract when she asked to be made permanent. In reply the company offered her a 12-month extension. When Harris went to the union, Nova responded with a list of accusations including that she was unco-operative, hostile to other staff, had fallen asleep during work and was a poor dresser.
Successive courts have since found that Harris was unfairly treated by Nova, and she has negotiated a financial settlement. She is returning to the US where she will study labour law.
Farley denies that Nova objects to unions or singles out union members. Very few employees were affiliated with a union, he said, but "if there are problems people should come and talk to me about it".
For teachers including David Dormon, the end can be especially drawn-out. Two years ago, when he was 30, Dormon was penalised financially and demoted for going out with a 21-year-old student at the school. He was also transferred to another branch.
Even though he says he worked hard to redeem himself, more complaints about him piled up in a shame file kept on him by a supervisor and there were new rebukes. The end came in an Osaka court-supervised settlement that gave Dormon compensation and a reference letter outlining his commendable record.
"The court case was nothing more than me fighting against something wrongly done to me," Dormon says. "I was disgusted by their actions. I felt very wronged. I realised very quickly that all the assumptions that I had about my rights as an employee and as a person did not exist in Japan."
http://smh.com.au/news/world/hard-lessons-in-broken-english/2006/03/14/1142098460885.html
Active Home Web Use by Country, January 2006
By Enid Burns March 13, 2006
The number of active home Internet users continues its growth in a majority of the 11 countries tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings. Yet the overall growth rate stagnated in January due to a decrease in active users in a few countries.
Brazil continued to lose traction with active Internet users, experiencing a 1.41 percent slip. After closing the year with a slight increase to its Internet user base in December, Germany's active users slipped just over half a percent. While France gained the lead in European broadband accounts last year, January showed a loss of 132,724 active users. Declines were also experienced in Sweden and the United States.
Nielsen//NetRatings uses a sampling methodology applied worldwide which allows for aggregation of data on a regional and global basis.
Active Home Internet Users by Country, January 2006
Country Japan
January 2006 39,817,810
December 2005 40,134,842
One-Month Change -317,393
Change % -.79
Japan is still ranked second behind USA.
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/geographics/article.php/3591231
The number of active home Internet users continues its growth in a majority of the 11 countries tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings. Yet the overall growth rate stagnated in January due to a decrease in active users in a few countries.
Brazil continued to lose traction with active Internet users, experiencing a 1.41 percent slip. After closing the year with a slight increase to its Internet user base in December, Germany's active users slipped just over half a percent. While France gained the lead in European broadband accounts last year, January showed a loss of 132,724 active users. Declines were also experienced in Sweden and the United States.
Nielsen//NetRatings uses a sampling methodology applied worldwide which allows for aggregation of data on a regional and global basis.
Active Home Internet Users by Country, January 2006
Country Japan
January 2006 39,817,810
December 2005 40,134,842
One-Month Change -317,393
Change % -.79
Japan is still ranked second behind USA.
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/geographics/article.php/3591231
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Country kids need language support
Growing educational diversity not limited to urban areas
By CHRIS BURGESS
Ji Young was 13 when she moved from Seoul to a small village in Yamagata in 1999. Her mother had arrived from Korea a few months earlier to marry a Japanese man.
Entering the local high school, she struggled at first with the language, cultural differences, and relations with friends, though quickly picked up spoken Japanese. Ji Young's mother's case was a fairly common example of a non-Japanese woman marrying a Japanese man who brings (or is later joined by -- "yobiyose") a child or children ("tsureko") from a first marriage.
And Yamagata Prefecture is a fairly typical destination for such children.
This region of around 1.25 million people located in Tohoku, was the first place in Japan to officially "bring in" brides from abroad, in 1985, triggering a nation-wide international marriage boom. Today, one in 17 (6.1 percent) of all marriages in the prefecture are international marriages, compared with around one in 20 nationally.
And while most of the children of international marriages are born and brought up in Japan, usually hold Japanese citizenship and speak fluent Japanese, stepchildren like Ji Young are typical of what researchers currently refer to as "newcomer" children -- those children who were born and brought up outside of Japan.
Haruo Ota, perhaps the leading researcher in this area, argues that the growing presence of these children in Japanese society presents one of the most significant historical challenges to the Japanese public school system.
At the moment, however, neither local nor national governments are adequately addressing the challenge of newcomer children outside urban areas, despite the fact that it is the more commonly observed situation throughout Japan.
According to government figures for 2004, the number of registered foreign children of compulsory school age was 120,417, with the number actually enrolled in Japanese public schools standing at 70,345.
While the discrepancy can be partly explained by enrollment in private, ethnic, and international schools, there are also estimated to be a large number of non-attendees, particularly among children of "nikkeijin."
Of the 70,345 attendees, 19,678 were classified as "requiring Japanese language instruction," with 84 percent actually receiving some kind of support. Broken down by region, Aichi Prefecture had the highest number (3,057) of students classified as needing language support, while Yamagata ranked in the lower half, with only 73 students.
These figures form the background for a glut of recent research on newcomer children in Japanese public schools. The vast majority of this work has focused on what have been called "diversity points," urban areas with large visible concentrations of non-Japanese, including not only Aichi Prefecture but also places such as Kanagawa Prefecture (Kawasaki City), Shizuoka Prefecture (Hamamatsu City), Gunma Prefecture (Ota City), as well as Tokyo and Osaka.
However, most children who require Japanese instruction are not concentrated in one area but spread across Japan, with over 80 percent of schools and more than half of villages, towns, and cities having four or fewer such students.
In other words, statistically, regions such as Yamagata do, in some ways, better reflect the situation and experiences of the majority of non-Japanese children in Japanese public schools compared with the diversity points.
However, despite the fact that the children in these nonmetropolitan regions represent some of the most needy cases, they tend to be ignored by researchers and their schools ineligible for government support.
A further problem is the category "foreign students who need Japanese instruction" itself.
First, there is no clear official definition of the term, judgment usually being left to individual schools.
Second, once students are adjudged to have reached a certain level of Japanese -- usually proficiency in daily conversation and basic reading -- they "disappear" from the statistics, typically after a year or so of schooling.
Third, children who are born and brought up in Japan and/or who possess dual nationality are not included in the category. Thus, although the figure of 73 children "who need Japanese instruction" gives the impression of a very low level of cultural diversity, this is in reality only the tip of the multicultural iceberg.
The 20 percent of schools which have more than four students deemed to require language help have generally enjoyed significant support from the Ministry of Education (MEXT). Since 1992, additional teachers have been dispatched to individual schools specifically to teach Japanese as a second language (JSL) and provide guidance on school culture. In 2004, for example, 985 such teachers were dispatched, though not all of these were Japanese teaching specialists.
Unfortunately, the 80 percent of public schools in Japan with four or fewer such students generally fail to qualify for these kinds of national assistance. As a result, support tends to come not from inside but from outside the school. Sometimes, volunteer organizations are the only source of support for many newcomer children in Japan.
In this respect, the support offered by grassroots organizations all over Japan fills a crucial gap.
According to a Cabinet Office survey, as of November 2004 there were more than 19,000 officially licensed NPOs nation-wide, a six-fold increase over four years.
And although there is no precise data on how many of these specifically support newcomer children, 3.3 percent of civic organizations, including NPOs, gave education as their main activity, with a further 17.4 percent involved in a secondary role.
In Yamagata, the necessity of providing newcomer children with appropriate Japanese language support was first discussed in a December 2001 symposium sponsored by IVY, a local NGO. Since then, progress in the form of practical policy response has been mixed. The prefectural government's recent 10-year plan barely mentioned the issue. On the municipal level, Yamagata City has seen the most promising initiatives.
In May 2004, Yamagata City International Friendship Association (YIFA) -- an independent organization largely funded by the city government -- made use of a one-off national government regional development grant to establish a "Resident Foreigner School Support Program."
Aimed at children between five and 20 and utilizing both bilingual staff and student volunteers, the program offers both intensive five-day-a-week classes for new arrivals and supplementary classes at weekends for those already attending school.
Unfortunately, the outlook for such organizations is uncertain. The YIFA program barely survived into its second year following the end of the initial government grant and only last minute funds from the city government saved the program, albeit one that had to be drastically cut back.
"Basically, with the lack of resources we are unable to provide proper support," one veteran says. "Moreover, with administrative restrictions being so stifling, I wonder just for who and why we're doing this."
As numbers of NPOs and other civic organizations continue to increase nationally in order to satisfy the needs of growing local educational diversity, funding is likely to become even tighter and red tape more cumbersome.
Ji Young, the 13-year-old Korean girl who followed her mother to Yamagata, was lucky to have a supportive family, friends, teachers, and neighbors in her struggle to adapt to Japanese public school life. But thousands of students in hundreds of schools across Japan continue to struggle with little or no support at all.
Dr. Chris Burgess lectures in Japanese Studies at Tsuda College Send comments to: community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: March 14, 2006
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060314zg.html
By CHRIS BURGESS
Ji Young was 13 when she moved from Seoul to a small village in Yamagata in 1999. Her mother had arrived from Korea a few months earlier to marry a Japanese man.
Entering the local high school, she struggled at first with the language, cultural differences, and relations with friends, though quickly picked up spoken Japanese. Ji Young's mother's case was a fairly common example of a non-Japanese woman marrying a Japanese man who brings (or is later joined by -- "yobiyose") a child or children ("tsureko") from a first marriage.
And Yamagata Prefecture is a fairly typical destination for such children.
This region of around 1.25 million people located in Tohoku, was the first place in Japan to officially "bring in" brides from abroad, in 1985, triggering a nation-wide international marriage boom. Today, one in 17 (6.1 percent) of all marriages in the prefecture are international marriages, compared with around one in 20 nationally.
And while most of the children of international marriages are born and brought up in Japan, usually hold Japanese citizenship and speak fluent Japanese, stepchildren like Ji Young are typical of what researchers currently refer to as "newcomer" children -- those children who were born and brought up outside of Japan.
Haruo Ota, perhaps the leading researcher in this area, argues that the growing presence of these children in Japanese society presents one of the most significant historical challenges to the Japanese public school system.
At the moment, however, neither local nor national governments are adequately addressing the challenge of newcomer children outside urban areas, despite the fact that it is the more commonly observed situation throughout Japan.
According to government figures for 2004, the number of registered foreign children of compulsory school age was 120,417, with the number actually enrolled in Japanese public schools standing at 70,345.
While the discrepancy can be partly explained by enrollment in private, ethnic, and international schools, there are also estimated to be a large number of non-attendees, particularly among children of "nikkeijin."
Of the 70,345 attendees, 19,678 were classified as "requiring Japanese language instruction," with 84 percent actually receiving some kind of support. Broken down by region, Aichi Prefecture had the highest number (3,057) of students classified as needing language support, while Yamagata ranked in the lower half, with only 73 students.
These figures form the background for a glut of recent research on newcomer children in Japanese public schools. The vast majority of this work has focused on what have been called "diversity points," urban areas with large visible concentrations of non-Japanese, including not only Aichi Prefecture but also places such as Kanagawa Prefecture (Kawasaki City), Shizuoka Prefecture (Hamamatsu City), Gunma Prefecture (Ota City), as well as Tokyo and Osaka.
However, most children who require Japanese instruction are not concentrated in one area but spread across Japan, with over 80 percent of schools and more than half of villages, towns, and cities having four or fewer such students.
In other words, statistically, regions such as Yamagata do, in some ways, better reflect the situation and experiences of the majority of non-Japanese children in Japanese public schools compared with the diversity points.
However, despite the fact that the children in these nonmetropolitan regions represent some of the most needy cases, they tend to be ignored by researchers and their schools ineligible for government support.
A further problem is the category "foreign students who need Japanese instruction" itself.
First, there is no clear official definition of the term, judgment usually being left to individual schools.
Second, once students are adjudged to have reached a certain level of Japanese -- usually proficiency in daily conversation and basic reading -- they "disappear" from the statistics, typically after a year or so of schooling.
Third, children who are born and brought up in Japan and/or who possess dual nationality are not included in the category. Thus, although the figure of 73 children "who need Japanese instruction" gives the impression of a very low level of cultural diversity, this is in reality only the tip of the multicultural iceberg.
The 20 percent of schools which have more than four students deemed to require language help have generally enjoyed significant support from the Ministry of Education (MEXT). Since 1992, additional teachers have been dispatched to individual schools specifically to teach Japanese as a second language (JSL) and provide guidance on school culture. In 2004, for example, 985 such teachers were dispatched, though not all of these were Japanese teaching specialists.
Unfortunately, the 80 percent of public schools in Japan with four or fewer such students generally fail to qualify for these kinds of national assistance. As a result, support tends to come not from inside but from outside the school. Sometimes, volunteer organizations are the only source of support for many newcomer children in Japan.
In this respect, the support offered by grassroots organizations all over Japan fills a crucial gap.
According to a Cabinet Office survey, as of November 2004 there were more than 19,000 officially licensed NPOs nation-wide, a six-fold increase over four years.
And although there is no precise data on how many of these specifically support newcomer children, 3.3 percent of civic organizations, including NPOs, gave education as their main activity, with a further 17.4 percent involved in a secondary role.
In Yamagata, the necessity of providing newcomer children with appropriate Japanese language support was first discussed in a December 2001 symposium sponsored by IVY, a local NGO. Since then, progress in the form of practical policy response has been mixed. The prefectural government's recent 10-year plan barely mentioned the issue. On the municipal level, Yamagata City has seen the most promising initiatives.
In May 2004, Yamagata City International Friendship Association (YIFA) -- an independent organization largely funded by the city government -- made use of a one-off national government regional development grant to establish a "Resident Foreigner School Support Program."
Aimed at children between five and 20 and utilizing both bilingual staff and student volunteers, the program offers both intensive five-day-a-week classes for new arrivals and supplementary classes at weekends for those already attending school.
Unfortunately, the outlook for such organizations is uncertain. The YIFA program barely survived into its second year following the end of the initial government grant and only last minute funds from the city government saved the program, albeit one that had to be drastically cut back.
"Basically, with the lack of resources we are unable to provide proper support," one veteran says. "Moreover, with administrative restrictions being so stifling, I wonder just for who and why we're doing this."
As numbers of NPOs and other civic organizations continue to increase nationally in order to satisfy the needs of growing local educational diversity, funding is likely to become even tighter and red tape more cumbersome.
Ji Young, the 13-year-old Korean girl who followed her mother to Yamagata, was lucky to have a supportive family, friends, teachers, and neighbors in her struggle to adapt to Japanese public school life. But thousands of students in hundreds of schools across Japan continue to struggle with little or no support at all.
Dr. Chris Burgess lectures in Japanese Studies at Tsuda College Send comments to: community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: March 14, 2006
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060314zg.html
Operators of Chinese, Korean schools in Japan call for tax breaks
Operators of Chinese and Korean schools in Tokyo and Kanagawa prefectures on Monday called for preferential tax treatment for donations to their schools, claiming that only providing such treatment to European and American international schools in Japan is discriminatory.
Tokyo Chosen Gakuen and Kanagawa Chosen Gakuen, both of which provide education for Koreans in Japan, and Yokohama Yamate Chinese School filed a petition with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations to correct the tax practice.
According to the petition, Korean and Chinese schools are unable to receive tax breaks for donations to the schools for such purposes as renovating or building school facilities, although such tax breaks are given to European and American schools in Japan.
The petition says such discriminatory treatment is a human rights violation.
Han Chong Suk, head of the mothers' association of Tokyo's Korean school and one of those who filed the petition, told a news conference that the construction of the school has been financed solely by donations.
"We want (the tax system) rectified," Han said
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060313/kyodo/d8gakubo0.html
Tokyo Chosen Gakuen and Kanagawa Chosen Gakuen, both of which provide education for Koreans in Japan, and Yokohama Yamate Chinese School filed a petition with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations to correct the tax practice.
According to the petition, Korean and Chinese schools are unable to receive tax breaks for donations to the schools for such purposes as renovating or building school facilities, although such tax breaks are given to European and American schools in Japan.
The petition says such discriminatory treatment is a human rights violation.
Han Chong Suk, head of the mothers' association of Tokyo's Korean school and one of those who filed the petition, told a news conference that the construction of the school has been financed solely by donations.
"We want (the tax system) rectified," Han said
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060313/kyodo/d8gakubo0.html
REFILING: Reforms promoted at public colleges
Unique reforms have been undertaken at seven public universities since they were turned into independent administrative entities, with a non-Japanese national appointed as president of Yokohama City University and student evaluation systems introduced at six schools, an education ministry survey showed Monday.
Yokohama City University appointed Bruce Stronach, a U.S. citizen, as president, while Akita International University appointed Australian Gregory Clark as vice president, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Yokohama City University also allows students to pay fees for some classes at convenience stores.
Six of the seven universities, including Nagasaki Prefectural University, have introduced tenure systems, while another combination of six, including Iwate Prefectural University, enables students to evaluate teachers.
The other universities turned into independent administrative entities were Tokyo Metropolitan University, Osaka Prefectural University and the University of Kitakyushu.
There were 73 colleges operated by prefectural or municipal governments in Japan as of April last year.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060313/kyodo/d8gak4pg7.html
Yokohama City University appointed Bruce Stronach, a U.S. citizen, as president, while Akita International University appointed Australian Gregory Clark as vice president, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Yokohama City University also allows students to pay fees for some classes at convenience stores.
Six of the seven universities, including Nagasaki Prefectural University, have introduced tenure systems, while another combination of six, including Iwate Prefectural University, enables students to evaluate teachers.
The other universities turned into independent administrative entities were Tokyo Metropolitan University, Osaka Prefectural University and the University of Kitakyushu.
There were 73 colleges operated by prefectural or municipal governments in Japan as of April last year.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060313/kyodo/d8gak4pg7.html
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