On May 18^th 2012, 22 people attended our Training Day for volunteers of the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Taster for Schools (JTS) Programme, in which native and fluent Japanese speakers conduct free Japanese taster sessions in UK schools.

As well as providing new members with basic information about the programme, this month’s JTS Training Day featured reports from two volunteers who had performed taster sessions in two very different environments – one for a group of 30 primary school pupils, and the other for just two very enthusiastic secondary school students!  This was followed by workshops by Hiroko Tanaka (Japanese Language Advisor and co-ordinator of JTS at the Japan Foundation), demonstrating enjoyable ways of introducing Japanese language through songs, arts & crafts, games and Japanese cultural activities.  Several of these ideas and resources came from Japan Foundation’s own resources, including the JFL Japanese Scheme of Work for Key Stage 2 and Ready Steady NihonGO.

One of the volunteers, Hitomi Ito-Burton, commented:

「訪問報告が分かり易く、また考察として、こうすれば良かった等、現実味を帯びていて、これからの準備をするのに役立った。田中さんの外国語学習の視点も良く、どのツールを実際どこから使ったのかおっしゃって下さったので分かり易かったです。」

(“The school visit reports from volunteers were easy to follow and gave a good idea of what would work well during an actual taster; this will prove useful for my preparation for upcoming school visits. Ms. Tanaka’s insight into learning foreign languages really explained how to use what methods in which circumstances and was also very easy to understand.”)

We would like to thank all volunteers for coming to the Training Day, and hope they will have the chance to hold a Japanese Taster Session at a school soon!

If you speak native level or fluent Japanese and are interested in becoming a JTS volunteer, please click here for more information.

If you are a school teacher and are interested in holding a Japanese language taster at your school, please click here to find out more.