我孫子市国際交流協会

Venue: Room 1, Abiko Civic Plaza
Lecturer: Prof. Hiroaki Kitamura, Seitoku University
Attendance: 25 volunteer teachers

Further to the previous lecture in September, 2007, Prof. Kitamura proceeded to the lecture on how to teach Japanese to foreign students answering questions from the floor on the problems encountered in the AIRA Japanese language class.
A. One question was raised about the difference in nature between the primary level
and the secondary level in the Japanese class run by volunteer teachers.
The professor commented that the contents of the primary level is similar to about 300 hours of study or about one year at a language school, which assist the students making a living in the Japanese society through daily conversation.
Students in this level advance like ascending a slope step by step.
The latter level is roughly that of Japanese junior high students regarding general knowledge and language skill more advanced than casual conversation skill.
This level includes formal expressions and vocabularies appearing in written articles. As a learner moves from a lesson to the other above, he/she would feel a sort of suddenly increased pressure. The contents of study looks like stepping up a staircase instead of ascending a slope as in the primary level.
Teachers working for this level certainly need much deeper and wider knowledge and well-trained teaching technique.
B. He gave following advices for Japanese teachers who teach foreign pupils or
students transferred from their countries.
(1) Teachers should not use a student's native language in teaching.
The direct method, teaching in Japanese only, will be most recommendable.
Once you use their mother tongue, you would be asked to stick to it for ever.
(2) Volunteer teachers are to teach how to use Japanese in daily life, but not to teach schoolbooks such as history and mathematics. Should you step into the realm of private tutor, classmates and their parents would be offended thinking that you must be giving newcomers unfair assistance, resulting in an unfavorable situation.
In the case of younger children in elementary schools, however, the situation may differ. They lack interest in language study and want to learn schoolbooks like their classmates do. Using schoolbooks as teaching materials in Japanese lessons may be effective in this case.
(3) Do not burden your students with your ample knowledge about Japan. Find out and give them only what they need right at present, otherwise they will be left confused.
(4) Teachers' speech should be clear and lively. Class activities should have a sense of speed and rhythm.
(5) Do not expect a student who knows for example ao (あお) and sora (そら) would automatically recognize aozora (青空). You have to teach him that the compound aozora
is composed of these two words.

His story extended to an interesting expression dating from Kamakura era showing
regional differences in the use of postpositional particles (joshi).
The particles, e (え,へ), ni（に）, and sa（さ）、all of these mean "toward" or "to".
In Kyo(Kyoto) people say "e" like nishi-e, while in Chikushi(Kyushu) "ni" like nishi-ni, and in Bandoh(Kanto area) "sa" like nishi-sa, respectively.

Tea and refreshments were served in the latter half of the lecture and all the attendees enjoyed Prof. Kitamura's talk, very informative and at the same time full of humor.

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