Children from ZP school in Satara to learn Japanese from trained teachers

This ZP school in Vijaynagar village of drought-prone Man taluka of Satara was lauded for starting this out-of-the-box activity in school by innovative teacher Balaji Jadhav. After starting to learn the Japanese language himself through tutorials available on the internet, Balaji decided to introduce this in his school.

According to Jadhav, not only will this be an engaging fun activity in school, it will also open a new platform for his students on a global level. “Something that started with showing engaging videos in Japanese language in classrooms during spare time led to learning of numbers and letters in this foreign language, as children started developing interest. Then we started taking lessons of Japanese script Hiragana while learning to create small words from letters,” said Jadhav.

His efforts soon started receiving support and one of these initiatives is by the Japanese Language Teachers’ Association, Pune (JALTAP) which is a network of Japanese teachers across Maharashtra. The association has been working to promote Japanese language and for enhancement of teaching skills of Japanese language teachers, for almost two decades now.

Informing that the association already has associations with a few rural schools for similar training, president of JALTAP, Suhas Mate, said, “We believe that learning of Japanese language also brings a certain amount of discipline and independence among children as these values are so well-embedded in the Japanese culture. As we came to know of the initiative taken by Jadhav sir in his ZP school, we decided to help him continue at a more professional level.” Mate, after a visit to the school last week, is now going to float an idea in his network of teachers to teach Japanese at this school in Satara’s village.

Mate shared that it will be a collaboration where teachers from JALTAP will connect with the school in hybrid mode. “We are working to develop a model where interested teachers can take turns to visit the school once a month, to physically assess the learning development. Whereas regular classes can continue online. We also have a few teachers living nearby Satara,” shared Mate, adding that the purpose will be to prepare children from this school to appear for different levels of the JLPT.

Last week, Tomonari Kuroda, Japanese language adviser from The Japan Foundation, which is Japan’s institution dedicated to carrying out comprehensive international cultural exchange programs throughout the world, visited the school. “After interacting with our students and looking at their interest and development in learning Japanese language, the foundation too has extended its support by sharing learning material and books among all,” said Jadhav.