2017 Activity Report

March Activity Report

31 March 2018
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

March in Leiden had that springtime ‘three cold days four warm days’ pattern. Just as I thought it was getting warmer, cold winds would blow and it’d be cold again, and even when the sun came out for a few days, it would be followed by rain and cool temperatures… So spring just doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

On the 17th of this month, the Japanese Embassy in The Netherlands held a Japanese Speech Competition in The Hague, in which five students and one alumnus from Leiden University competed. Here at the GJO, we made a speech club to support these students. Five Leiden students and four Japanese exchange students joined the club.

In speech club, we mostly focused on polishing the students’ expressions and practicing pronunciation. The Japanese exchange students listened and gave advice to the Leiden students such as ‘I think you’d get your point across better if you said it like this…’, ‘the intonation of this word is like this…’ and ‘I think it’d be easier to listen to if you paused here’. At first, there were students who awkwardly stuttered through their speeches while reading off of their papers, but as they practiced I could see them getting better, and I was looking forward to the actual competition.

Eventually, the day of the competition arrived, and the entire speech club went to the venue together. The topic of the 31st Japanese Speech Competition was free to choose for each participant, so there were many interesting topics from students studying Japanese all over the Netherlands. The students from Leiden University all thought about and chose their own topics, which were ‘the reason I study Japanese’, ‘Japanese nature’, ‘Japanese people and order’, ‘Japanese food’ and ‘dialects’. The students were saying ‘I’m so nervous…’ before the competition, but everyone calmed down when the time came, and gave beautiful speeches even better than in our practices.

After the speeches were over, the award ceremony was held, and two students from Leiden won awards: the special award and first place! When the students’ names were called, the venue was filled with applause, and I was so happy and cheered really loudly. I’m so glad that their hard work and practices paid off. Even the students who didn’t win prizes did a really good job.

It was short-lived, but I also gained a valuable experience helping these students through speech club. It made me think that I want to stop focusing on just textbook Japanese, and instead teach ‘communicative Japanese’. I’ll start working hard on this from next month’s classes!

February Activity Report

28 February 2018
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

February in Leiden was struck by a cold wave, and it became so cold that the canal froze over. These days the wind is so cold that when I walk outside I feel like the skin on my face might crack. Despite this, in the streets there are people riding bikes in miniskirts and thin stockings, and people walking around in shorts, so I was very surprised.

Finally the new semester has begun, and the campus is lively again.

This month, the class ‘Japanese 1’, a zero-experience beginner class for first-year students, began. At first, the students were a bit nervous, but after about a month it seems the students have warmed up to each other. Most of the students are complete beginners, but there are a few students who have studied Japanese on their own, and even a few who have been on exchange to Japan, and so these students help lead and motivate the class.

In the February beginner classes, we finished covering hiragana and katakana. I started teaching them from the single-stroke characters such as ‘shi’ and ‘tsu’, then gradually went onto harder characters like ‘a’ and ‘ne’. However, many students struggled with the rounding and curling characteristics of hiragana, and it seemed difficult for them to write well-balanced characters. Also, since there are many hiragana and katakana characters that look similar, when we practiced telling the difference between characters such as ‘ma’-‘ho’-‘ha’ and ‘so’-‘ri’-‘n’, students exclaimed that ‘they all look the same!’

Soon it will be one month since the students began learning Japanese, and there are still many students who are having trouble writing and reading hiragana smoothly. I remember when I was a child, I didn’t understand the difference between ‘a’ and ‘o’, and I can vividly remember not being able to write ‘a’ for a long time. I know it is difficult for them to remember these unfamiliar characters all at once, but I really want them to try hard.

From March we will start kanji. I will try my best to get the students a little more used to Japanese.

January Activity Report

31 January 2018
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

In January, Leiden University is in the middle of its Winter Break. While the campus is usually bustling with people, the current silence is a little strange.

This month, I held a tea party for students studying Japanese at Leiden University’s campus in The Hague. I also invited Japanese exchange students to this tea party, and together the students drank tea, ate snacks, and conversed in Japanese.

The reason I planned this tea party is because I wanted to give students the opportunity and place to interact in Japanese freely. Students living in the Netherlands don’t have many chances to use Japanese in their everyday lives, so they often tell me that they want to speak in Japanese, and know more about natural Japanese. One particular comment I have gotten quite often is how the students want to talk about topics of their own choice, not just the topics covered in class. Because of these comments, I held this tea party.

At the tea party, I started by having the students give simple self-introductions. However, when I said ‘jikoshokai wo shite kudasai’ (please introduce yourselves), some of the students replied with ‘what is a jikoshokai?’ I asked them ‘what is a jikoshokai?’ and one student replied ‘to invite?’ to which I corrected her by saying ‘shotai suru’. It seems that some students have forgotten what they learnt last semester over the winter break. Once I explained what a ‘jikoshokai’ is, the students began expertly using structures like ‘my name is… I live in… My hobby is…’ to discuss their names, birthplaces, and favorite things.

After everyone finished their self-introductions, students began chatting freely. The Leiden students and Japanese exchange students had only met for the first time, and so at first they asked each other about their hobbies and hometowns. The Leiden students used structures they had learnt in class to talk with the Japanese students, such as ‘have you … before?’ and ‘what kind of … are famous?’

When one Japanese students asked the Leiden students what they knew about Japanese culture, the students replied with ‘KAWAII’ (cuteness). It seems that the students learnt about ‘KAWAII’ in class. The Japanese students were surprised that this was taught in class, and the conversation became very lively.

During the conversation, the Japanese students used words such as ‘mecha’ and ‘majide’ which are not covered by the textbooks. When I explained these words to the students, they listened very carefully and tried to remember them, which I thought was very impressive. I suppose remembering Japanese that isn’t in the textbook is more interesting for them.

One thing I was surprised at during this tea party was how well the Leiden students could keep up with the natural conversation speed of the Japanese students. I always speak to them slowly using grammar they have already learned in class, but I thought, for the first time, that maybe it’s okay for me to speak faster with them.

Since the new semester hasn’t started yet, many students haven’t returned from their hometowns, and so the tea party was a small one with 10 attendees. Despite this, all the participants were able to talk actively. The students also commented on how they were happy that they could talk about whatever they liked. Through this tea party, I think the students were able to realize what kind of conversations they can have from the content they have studied, and how much of this content they can actually use.

I would like to hold another tea party soon.

December Activity Report

31 December 2017
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

This month, winter semester classes finally ended.

In the last grammar class before the written examinations, I handed out revision sheets on verb conjugation of the verbs students had already learnt, and had them revise in class. As I handed out the worksheets saying, students started working on them with the people around them, and I could hear them frantically asking ‘wait, how do I do this one again!?’ Some students even asked for another handout to work on at home.

In normal classes, I usually fix the students’ conjugation mistakes (such as yomite and yomerareru to yonde and yomeru), but I didn’t have the chance to check every little mistake. It’s hard enough for the students already, as they have so much grammar to study, so perhaps they didn’t have time to remember every conjugation.

During the revision class, some students made mistakes such as ‘hon wo *yomiteimasu’ (instead of yondeimasu) and ‘hon ga *yondai’ (instead of yomitai’), but through this revision it seems that they understood what areas they need to work on. I am glad that we had time to do this revision session before the examinations.

To get everyone in the Christmas spirit, at the end of class I taught the students the ‘te-kei song’ to the tune of ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.’ This is a song to help students remember how to conjugate the ‘te-form’ verbs. At first I thought the students would be too embarrassed to sing in class, but to my surprise they started saying ‘I wish I knew this song earlier, it’s so helpful!’ So I think next semester I will introduce more songs like this one.

This semester, with a lot of help from the professors here at Leiden, classes went smoothly. I had many good and bad experiences, and so it was a very educational four months. I aim to make my classes next semester better than they were this semester.

November Activity Report

30 November 2017
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

In Leiden there are markets held every Wednesday and Saturday by the canal. The other day I bought fruit there, but as I got home and took a bite, I was surprised to find that it was frozen. On that day the temperature had fallen below zero, so the fruit must have frozen over while it was at the market. It was strangely nostalgic, as the taste of frozen orange reminded me of the taste of school lunches in Japan.

November was marked by a restlessness among the students in class, as many students had begun applying to study abroad in Japan, and a number of students had already received acceptances. I can only imagine how exciting it must be for the students to be able to put their knowledge of Japanese into practice in Japan, especially considering they have been studying Japanese in such a faraway land as the Netherlands.

Reading the essays handed in by the students, I saw that many of their essays included such statements as, “I want to improve my Japanese by the time I leave for Japan,” “I want to study Japanese hard so that I can talk a lot with people in Japan.” I could really feel how excited they were at the prospect of studying abroad.

There are quite a few students who come to me to ask questions after class, including a number who ask about grammar points which have not yet been covered in class. Hoping to match their earnestness, I am determined to do my best in the lessons.

In November I was afforded several opportunities to observe classes. I went to classes taught by other teachers of the Japanese faculty, and I also received advice from teachers who came to observe my lessons.

Both while I was observing an elementary grammar class and while I was observing a conversation class, I was surprised to find that the teachers spoke much faster during class than I would have expected. I had thought that the speed at which Japanese people normally talk would be too fast for the students to follow, but they seemed to be keeping up without a problem.

On the other hand, the teachers who came to observe my classes pointed out that I spoke too slowly. I had done so out of consideration for my students, but was told that teachers should speak at a natural speed so that students can become accustomed to it and ultimately have fewer problems when they visit Japan.

Reflecting on this advice, I came to agree that it was important to teach natural Japanese so that the students would not find that the Japanese they had learned in the Netherlands was so different from the Japanese spoken in Japan that they couldn’t understand the latter.

I benefited from a lot of advice, and there are certainly a number of areas where I could improve upon. Happily I have also received many positive comments, such as that the students in my classes had laughed a lot and seemed to have been having fun. Only a small amount of time remains for this semester; next month we will have final exams. I am determined however to work hard until the very end of the semester.

October Activity Report

31 October 2017
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

October in Leiden was exceptionally rainy. Sometimes a downpour would suddenly occur in the middle of an otherwise clear day, and I was very surprised by how the weather would rapidly change multiple times in one day. The cool autumn breeze has become considerably stronger, and there are students in the Japanese classes who miss class every now and then due to their health. I am trying to take care of myself so the same thing doesn’t happen to me.

At the start of each conversation class, I am trying to teach some Japanese that doesn’t appear in the textbooks. In one class this month, as winter is drawing near, I taught students about ‘washing hands and gargling.’ For the students, there are not many chances to learn language related so closely to Japanese customs, so the students listened, took notes, and asked questions very intently.

Also in conversation class, I get a few students each time to give a one minute speech. The speeches are usually about the geography and customs of the Netherlands, and this kind of information is all new to me, so I am very interested in what they have to say. The classes are very helpful, as they are not just about me teaching them, but also about them teaching me.

On the 23rd of October, in front of the Global Japan Office in Leiden University’s Arsenaal building, we held a ceremony for putting up the office sign. From Leiden University, the ceremony was attended by head of the Japanese department, Professor Ivo Smits, head of the Asian Studies (research) Master’s Program and former visiting professor at TUFS, Professor Ethan Mark, and head of the linguistic division of the Japanese Studies Master’s Program, Professor Keiko Yoshioka. From TUFS, many teachers, students, and students on exchange at Leiden University attended, including Professor Sho Hagio from the President’s Task Force (International Management Office), and Professor Nobuaki Kondo from the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.

At the ceremony, speeches were given by both Leiden University’s Professor Ivo Smits, and TUFS’ Professor Sho Hagio. Both of their speeches contained the line ‘let’s make the contents of this sign a reality.’ This message means that, sometimes when we make things, we immediately relax when finished as if we have accomplished something, but in reality this is usually only the beginning of what was started. Taking these words to heart, I aim to use the establishment of the GJO as a chance to work more proactively and directly in developing relations between our two universities.

September Activity Report

30 September 2017
Global Japan Office Coordinator
Yuri Oyama

In September, the new semester finally began here at Leiden University. I heard that autumn in the Netherlands is dominated by rain, but this year the good weather keeps continuing. The Netherlands is famous for being a bicycle country, and Leiden is no exception to this, with bicycles zooming past you wherever you walk. Even at the university there are many bicycles parked around the campus buildings.

Also, since this year is ‘Leiden Asia Year,’ there are many asia-related events and exhibitions being held around Leiden. At the National Museum of Ethnology near Leiden Centraal, a special exhibition titled ‘COOL JAPAN’ is being held, through which a wide range of Japanese culture, from ukiyo-e to anime, is being introduced. (Picture 1)

This month, before the start of the new semester, we held a lunch meeting with the Japanese exchange students on exchange at Leiden University. Including undergraduate students from TUFS, 12 students attended and, after introducing themselves, exchanged information on daily life and events at Leiden University, making the meeting a successful one.

In addition, from this month onwards, Japanese classes begin. I will be in charge of a beginner-level grammar class and a conversation class. Regardless of the class, all of the students are extremely ambitious, and ask various questions during class. I am often asked about phrases using grammatical structures students have not yet learnt, or simply ‘how do you say this in Japanese?’ It makes me very excited to see how the students are taking a proactive approach to their learning.

The semester has only just begun, but I aim to work hard to respond to the enthusiasm of my students.