Japanilaisen vaihto-opettajan tervehdys klassikkalaisille

Hei!  Minä olen Yayoi Higashi.

Minä tu­len Ja­pa­nis­ta.  Haus­ka ta­va­ta!

I was loo­king for­ward to see­ing you! Now I am very hap­py to be here in Kuo­pio. I come from Kyo­to in Ja­pan, which was an an­cient ca­pi­tal from 794 to 1869, very tra­di­ti­o­nal city.The­re are a lot of shri­nes and temp­les, and lots of tou­rists from over­se­as en­joy sight­see­ing.

I have been wor­king as a high school te­ac­her for about twen­ty ye­ars.  I te­ach Eng­lish and so­me­ti­mes Ja­pa­ne­se for fo­reign kids.  I have thought I would like to stu­dy ab­ro­ad and ob­tain more ex­pe­rien­ces in re­cent ye­ars.

Fin­land is re­now­ned for its edu­ca­ti­on, so I hope to see how the edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem works, how the te­ac­hers run clas­ses, what they emp­ha­si­ze in the school cur­ri­cu­lum, and how the stu­dents le­arn at school inc­lu­ding the met­hod of te­ac­hing and le­ar­ning Eng­lish as a se­cond lan­gu­a­ge.

The school sys­tem here is qui­te dif­fe­rent and the school life is also dif­fe­rent from ours.

I feel that Fin­nish edu­ca­ti­ons is very fle­xib­le and of­fer a wide ran­ge of op­ti­ons.  That me­ans stu­dents are re­qui­red to be in­de­pen­dent and res­pon­sib­le for them­sel­ves.  Also they seem to be calm and re­la­xed, and spend a com­for­tab­le life with enough time com­pa­red to Ja­pa­ne­se stu­dents.  School in Ja­pan starts at around 8:40 and 6^th/7^th les­son ends at 15:30/16:30.  Af­ter that lots of them par­ti­ci­pa­te club ac­ti­vi­ties and go home at 19:00.  Most of them have club ac­ti­vi­ties on Sa­tur­days&Sun­days.  Of cour­se they have to stu­dy so they spend a kind of busy life.  They have most of their les­sons at their ho­me­room class and they take part in va­ri­ous events like cul­tu­ral fes­ti­val, sports fes­ti­val, school trip with class­ma­tes.  So they have a strong sen­se of be­lon­ging in their class.

Last year I was in char­ge of in­ter­na­ti­o­nal edu­ca­ti­on at the high school I wor­ked at and I feel that this is very im­por­tant in to­day’s world.  Through int­ro­du­cing Ja­pa­ne­se cul­tu­re to fo­reign stu­dents, I would like to help pro­mo­te their cross-cul­tu­ral un­ders­tan­ding.  Of cour­se I’d like to help stu­dents stu­dy the Ja­pa­ne­se lan­gu­a­ge as well.  Af­ter co­ming back to Ja­pan, I would like to use what I le­ar­ned in Fin­land to help my stu­dents, my school, and edu­ca­ti­on in Kyo­to and Ja­pan.  I re­al­ly hope to make a gre­at cont­ri­bu­ti­on to so­cie­ty by con­veying what I have le­ar­ned.

I have deep and va­ried in­te­rests and I have a strong de­si­re to con­ti­nue le­ar­ning new things.  I be­lie­ve we should be sti­mu­la­ted and de­ve­lo­ped by ha­ving a lot of ex­pe­rien­ces and com­mu­ni­ca­ting with pe­op­le with dif­fe­rent va­lu­es and backg­rounds.  So I want to tre­a­su­re eve­ry en­coun­ter and eve­ry new ex­pe­rien­ce here.  I hope many of you will le­arn some about Ja­pan and that you be­co­me more in­te­res­ted in Ja­pa­ne­se cul­tu­re.  I am re­al­ly loo­king for­ward to tal­king with you!