A big thank you to everyone who visited the Japan Foundation’s stand at the Language Show Live on 16^th, 17^th and 18^th October at Olympia.

Held once a year, the Language Show is the UK's biggest event for language learners, teachers, linguists and anyone with a passion for languages.  The Japan Foundation’s stand gave visitors a chance to experience Japanese language and culture, including writing their name in Japanese.

On Friday, we were very lucky to be joined by Catherine Rodrigues, teacher at St Edmund Campion Catholic Primary School Maidenhead and 2015 winner of the Association for Language Learning’s Primary Language Teacher of the Year for her work in Japanese.  She held a seminar on her school as a case study of a UK primary school's mission to embed global learning into the curriculum by introducing a multi-lingual approach including Japanese. You can read more about her school here.

On Saturday, we held a Japanese Language Taster session led by the Japan Foundation’s Assistant Japanese Language Advisor, Mio Tsunematsu. It was attended by enthusiastic language learners of all ages, who learned basic Japanese greetings and the writing system.

Finally, on Sunday,  the Japan Foundation held a presentation on kami-shibai (a traditional form of Japanese story-telling with pictures), and how this can be used effectively to teach not only Japanese, but any foreign language. This presentation used resources from the Japanese Language Scheme of Work for Primary Schools, as well as videos of students performing kami-shibai from the webpages of Tenbury Cof E Primary School and Holbrook Primary School, both previous winners of the Japan Webpage Contest for Schools.

Additionally, we held a Japan Quiz, which approximately 600 people entered.

The answers to the quiz were as follows:

1. What colour is the Japanese flag? 
a) Red and yellow     b) Red and white       c) Pink and white
ANSWER b) The Japanese flag is a red circle on a white background

2. What is the Japanese art of artistic paper folding called?
a) Origami             b) Kendo              c) Karaoke
ANSWER a) Origami literally means “folding paper”

3. The kanji (Japanese character) 花(hana) means “flower” and the kanji 火 (hi) means “fire.” What do you think their combination, 花火, (hanabi) means?
a) Daisy   b) Explosion   c) Firework
ANSWER c) “Hanabi” means “firework” in Japanese.

Out of those who answered the quiz correctly, we picked five at random to send our Japan Foundation Goody Bag. Congratulations to Joyce from London, Jackie from Middlesex, Emma from Croydon and Artyom from Cambridge who have all been sent Goody Bags!

We would like to thank Catherine Rodrigues and all our Japanese Taster for Schools volunteers who generously donated their time and expertise for the show.  Domo arigato gozaimashita!

Japan Foundation will also be attending the Language Show Scotland  on March 11^th and 12^th 2016, and the 2016 Language Show Live in London on October 14^th – 16^th. We hope to see you there!

Click here to view more photos from the event.