About YMCA school
■Greetings from the Director of the Japanese Department
To communicate is to get oneself across, which means mutual understanding. Languages and words are tools to express and convey one’s feelings and thoughts. Languages are vibration of sounds, and letters are symbols to express languages. By expressing and conveying one’s feelings and thought to this vibration, I believe we can make ourselves understood. When learning Japanese, if we don’t understand and use Japanese language as a tool to express and convey our thoughts, only the meanings of words and not our mutual feelings will be conveyed.
A husband and a wife who have been married to each other for a long time can make themselves understood with few words. When we communicate our thoughts combined with feelings by keeping in mind the other person’s feelings and his/her language abilities, we can then understand each other.
Communication is incomplete when it is one-sided. It is completed only when it is confirmed by the other person’s words and expressions that one’s intention has been conveyed. I believe that the way to learn a real-life language is to learn through experience the right way to convey and receive languages and words. We would like to work together so that each student will be able to make fruitful communications with various people using a real-life language.
■From the Head Instructor
This year (2008) is the 20th year since the full-time Japanese Language Department was established in 1988. I would like to thank all the founder instructors, full-time and part-time instructors, volunteer tutors, and staff members who have been supported this school. Also, thanks to our tutoring system and Language Lab, which have been the characteristic features of the YMCA Japanese School.
Tutoring activity started when the school was founded. With a request from a student, we arrange a volunteer tutor, who will help the student practice conversation or review textbooks after school. Tutors were the one who listened to the students’ voices, when students didn’t want to or couldn’t speak to the teachers. It is this big support of the volunteer tutors that enabled most of the students to continue studying until graduation. Lounge at the 8th floor of the school building has been the place where this activity took place ever since the school was founded. Ms. Asano (present full-time instructor) was engaged in this activity as one of the tutors, and after finishing the training course, she became an instructor at the YMCA.
Lessons at the Language Laboratory were also present from the very beginning of the school’s history. It has been very effective for training the two of the four skills, listening and speaking. It was not until April of 2008 that students were able to take home the studying materials by USB (Universal Seril Bus). Until then, we used only audiotapes. In beginner courses, some students were too shy to listen to their own recorded voices. Practicing among classmates using headphones has been very effective where they can take roles as teachers or students. Instructors who take charge of drills have to check the recorded voices of the students after lessons and hand them back to each student. This takes a tremendous time. It is very convenient where 15 students can use the listening materials simultaneously. Students can work on past exams at their own paces. Also, they can check which question took long time to solve, by checking their progresses over personal computers.
I am always very happy to see all students, instructors, tutors, and staff members smiling at the parties at the end of semesters.
Ms.Asanuma
