As one of the significant annual meetings, this year’s joint session was held by members from the management and the language classes and salons.       (No.16-33)

Date/time: Sunday, February 12, 2017 10:30am-12:00noon

Venue: Civic Plaza, Room 1 Attendant: People in charge of classes and the salons: 18 members

AIRA management: Murakoshi and Kitajima as Vice Presidents, Beppu as Chief of Study and Culture Department, and Arai, in charge of the “Ryugakusei ga Sensei” program, including Sakazume and Kaneko from the administration office. 24 people in total

 After a brief opening address by Mr. Beppu, everyone attended made self- introduction. Ms. Kitajima mentioned that the foreign language courses conform one of the center pillar activities of AIRA and thanked for the managers for further cooperation in this project. Following a brief report on main projects of the fiscal 2016, a detailed picture on the foreign language courses in the fiscal 2017 was explained as follows.

1. In addition to the current courses, start of a Chinese basic course is now under study. Five language courses (English, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish) with 26 classes, and separately German and Spanish salons are confirmed to be open in succession.

2. Following the announcement of the whole schedule in March, public notice will be made on the April 1 issue of Koho Abiko.

Mr. Beppu sincerely requested for course managers’ cooperation on room booking, coordination among class members when so needed, producing day-by-day schedule of the respective class.

Questions and answers were made on such as, difference between regular class and salon-class, capacity of a class, and the level of the advanced class of certain language courses. Ms. Arai, in charge of management of the “Ryugakusei ga Sensei” (literally “A foreign student visits our class today!”) program

(No. 16-33 Translated by T. Sugano)