A lecture for volunteer teachers was held under the theme of “How to teach Japanese language to non-Japanese”, organized by the Japanese Class of AIRA Volunteer Section. 　(No. 17-9)

Date and Time:  Saturday, July 8, 2017  2:00 p.m. ~4:00 p.m.
Venue:  Mini-Hall, Abista (Abiko City Life-Long Study Center)
Lecturer:  Ms. Masumi Tajima (Assistant Professor at Chuo Gakuin University, Ph. D. in Education)
Attendants:  33 AIRA volunteer teachers, 4 volunteer teachers from Matsudo International Exchange Association, Ms. Kaori Niwa (professor at Chuo Gakuin University).  38 people in total

The first “Level-Up Lecture for Volunteer Teachers” this year was held under the title of “Easy Japanese in View of Vocabulary”, having Ms. Masumi Tajima as the lecturer.  She teaches at Chuo Gakuin University in Abiko City.

The lecture was emceed by Ms. Matsushita, AIRA staff member and volunteer teacher.  In the opening speech Mr. Hesaki, chief of AIRA Volunteer Section, said, “There are various patterns how people acquire foreign languages.  They also depend on each person’s personality and surroundings.  I hope you’ll learn a lot from today’s lecture.”

Ms. Tajima lectured using Power Point.  She also directed two group exercises.  (The attendants were divided into six groups and discussed in each group.)

The contents of the lecture were as follows.
1.    After the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995 “easy Japanese” started to be sought.  She introduced various opinions on easy Japanese.
2.    As an example of easy Japanese, a sentence-rewriting was introduced.  It is important to focus on significant matters in rewriting.
3.    The difficulty of Japanese is due to its vocabulary which consists of many kinds of words such as native Japanese words, Chinese words, other foreign words and mixed words.
4.    Does the degree of difficulty of a Japanese word depend on its familiarity or the frequency it is used?

In the group exercises
1.    The attendants tried rewriting an article “Outline of Temporary Welfare Benefit” published by the city.  They discussed in groups how to convey the contents in easy Japanese.  Some wrote them in short simple sentences while others itemized them.
2.    They also tried ranking the degrees of familiarity and the frequency in use.  The degree of familiarity is ranked from level one to level seven.  It turned out the level is different according to each person and it’s not easy to generalize it.

This was a meaningful lecture in which each attendant was given an opportunity to think about “easy Japanese”.　　（Translated by Chizu Yamaguchi）