▼ Foreign Children, Japanese Schools / Future Teachers Work To Gain New Skills
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KOFU — “How do you think this fish feels?” asked Akane Osada, 21. The senior from the University of Yamanashi’s Faculty of Education was teaching a boy from the Philippines at a municipal primary school in mid-June.
Osada was working as a student teacher with two others from the faculty to learn the ins and outs of teaching supplementary lessons to foreign children. She and the boy slowly read aloud from the book “Swimmy,” a tale set undersea that is included in a Japanese textbook for second-grade students.
Osada had prepared pictures of happy and sad faces to indicate the feelings of the fish that appear in the story. She asked the boy to choose which ones best described their feelings at every scene to gauge his level of comprehension after each section, before continuing on.
Her two peers — Fumina Kobayashi, 21, and Yuka Aoki, 22 — were in charge of a fourth-grade girl from Peru, helping her make a newspaper to provide information about the country’s specialty products and geography, handwritten in Japanese and accompanied by drawings.
“They taught me in a way that was easy for me to understand,” the girl said. “I want to work more with them.”
In 2008, the University of Yamanashi launched a program for students in its teacher-training course to acquire skills to educate foreign children. In addition to the methods of teaching Japanese grammar as well as hiragana and other characters, the program focuses on typical problem areas for foreign children in various subjects, and how they should be taught, while also discussing the need to understand differences in lifestyles, religions and other cultural aspects.
According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, foreign children in need of learning support with limited Japanese language skills were enrolled at 6,137 public primary, middle, high and other schools in fiscal 2014. However, there are only about 1,600 teachers this fiscal year who can instruct such students in simple Japanese.
The ministry, while aiming to increase the number of these types of specialized instructors, is also encouraging teachers at public primary, middle and high schools who lack experience teaching foreign students to take training programs.
Even so, the National Center for Teachers’ Development in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, serves as the only government-run institution that provides these programs, taken by just 121 teachers during fiscal 2015, including principals and others in management positions.
Amid all this, some universities are encouraging students to learn the skills to teach foreign children while at college. Yokohama National University, for example, offers a specialized program mainly for students in its training course for primary school teachers, while Aichi University of Education will launch a similar program next fiscal year.
A report compiled in June by a ministry panel of experts called for prospective teachers to learn how to teach foreign students.
The panel also urged the development of training programs to help improve the expertise of in-service teachers.
Koichiro Nakamoto, an associate professor of Japanese language education for nonnative speakers at the University of Yamanashi, said the prefecture also has a growing number of foreign children in need of learning support. “Therefore, there are great expectations for university students wishing to work as teachers,” he said. “It would be a great help for them to acquire the skills to teach foreign children.”
Examples of university programs for teachers of foreign children
■ Yokohama National University: Program offered mainly for students taking training course to become primary school teachers
■ Kyoto University of Education, Shinshu University: Programs offered for students taking teacher-training courses
■ Aichi University of Education: Program to be offered for students taking course to become primary school teachers, set to start next spring
Osada was working as a student teacher with two others from the faculty to learn the ins and outs of teaching supplementary lessons to foreign children. She and the boy slowly read aloud from the book “Swimmy,” a tale set undersea that is included in a Japanese textbook for second-grade students.
Osada had prepared pictures of happy and sad faces to indicate the feelings of the fish that appear in the story. She asked the boy to choose which ones best described their feelings at every scene to gauge his level of comprehension after each section, before continuing on.
Her two peers — Fumina Kobayashi, 21, and Yuka Aoki, 22 — were in charge of a fourth-grade girl from Peru, helping her make a newspaper to provide information about the country’s specialty products and geography, handwritten in Japanese and accompanied by drawings.
“They taught me in a way that was easy for me to understand,” the girl said. “I want to work more with them.”
In 2008, the University of Yamanashi launched a program for students in its teacher-training course to acquire skills to educate foreign children. In addition to the methods of teaching Japanese grammar as well as hiragana and other characters, the program focuses on typical problem areas for foreign children in various subjects, and how they should be taught, while also discussing the need to understand differences in lifestyles, religions and other cultural aspects.
According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, foreign children in need of learning support with limited Japanese language skills were enrolled at 6,137 public primary, middle, high and other schools in fiscal 2014. However, there are only about 1,600 teachers this fiscal year who can instruct such students in simple Japanese.
The ministry, while aiming to increase the number of these types of specialized instructors, is also encouraging teachers at public primary, middle and high schools who lack experience teaching foreign students to take training programs.
Even so, the National Center for Teachers’ Development in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, serves as the only government-run institution that provides these programs, taken by just 121 teachers during fiscal 2015, including principals and others in management positions.
Amid all this, some universities are encouraging students to learn the skills to teach foreign children while at college. Yokohama National University, for example, offers a specialized program mainly for students in its training course for primary school teachers, while Aichi University of Education will launch a similar program next fiscal year.
A report compiled in June by a ministry panel of experts called for prospective teachers to learn how to teach foreign students.
The panel also urged the development of training programs to help improve the expertise of in-service teachers.
Koichiro Nakamoto, an associate professor of Japanese language education for nonnative speakers at the University of Yamanashi, said the prefecture also has a growing number of foreign children in need of learning support. “Therefore, there are great expectations for university students wishing to work as teachers,” he said. “It would be a great help for them to acquire the skills to teach foreign children.”
Examples of university programs for teachers of foreign children
■ Yokohama National University: Program offered mainly for students taking training course to become primary school teachers
■ Kyoto University of Education, Shinshu University: Programs offered for students taking teacher-training courses
■ Aichi University of Education: Program to be offered for students taking course to become primary school teachers, set to start next spring
- October 1, 2016
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