2021 Activity Report

July Activity Report

31 July 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako

The vaccination of Covid-19, which started at the end of March this year, has progressed, and various regulations have been relaxed. In particular, many outdoor events are now allowed though there are various conditions. The annual Midsummer Festival event was held, and it attracted countless people.

Santaka park during Midsummer festival
(Photo by: Arvydas Kumpis)

On the other hand, indoor activities are still very limited, and all classes for the fall semester at Vytautas Magnus University, which starts in September, will be held online. Many students have expressed their desire for face-to-face classes, and it is painfully obvious that they miss the campus life in Kaunas.

There are usually no major campus events in July and August, and students usually spend their time relaxing in their hometowns, traveling, or working part-time in neighboring countries. I've heard that those who have completed their vaccinations and are now free to travel are taking trips to nearby places. I am looking forward to hearing from the students after the summer vacation.

For students who want to continue studying Japanese language during the vacation, there are several opportunities to learn the language. In addition to the Czech-Lithuanian Japanese Language Exchange Group (Cze-Li Society), which has been running since April, and the "Reading News in Japanese" group every Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m., the "VMU Summer Japanese Intermediate Short Course" for students who have completed all of the VMU Japanese language courses has also started. The course was attended by nine VMU students as well as graduates and teachers. The theme of the course is "The Significance of Studying Abroad.". Five classes were held from the end of June to the beginning of July. Since all the participants had studied in Japan, we were able to listen to very unique and interesting stories about their experiences. For the fourth session, we had a joint class with Gifu University, which is our partner university. Gifu University has been offering a course called "Lithuanian Studies" as a liberal arts course since this term, and the students learn various things related to Lithuania from various lecturers. In the joint class, the Lithuanian participants gave a 10 minute presentation on their own idea of "the significance of studying abroad," after which they discussed studying abroad with each other. For VMU students who enroll in the East Asian Studies Program with the aim of studying abroad as one of their goals, the opinions of students who are not so concerned about studying abroad were very refreshing. On the other hand, some of the participants from Gifu University said that they had come to think about studying abroad after class. I was able to rediscover the importance of opportunities to learn and stimulate each other, not exchange for practicing Japanese conversation.

As one of the lectures on Lithuanian studies, we also held a "Sugihara House Virtual Tour" where we broadcast a live performance of Kaunas' Sugihara Memorial Hall. Sugihara Museum staff member Ms. Eglė Žvirblytė took the opportunity to introduce the museum and spend 45 minutes explaining about Kaunas at the time, Sugihara's fate, and the fate of the Jewish and others who survived on the Visas for Life issued by Sugihara. The rest of the time was devoted to questions and answers. Since the class was attended by 40 people, we created an open chat room on LINE in advance and asked them to fill in their questions. Before conducting the above joint class, we asked the participating students, "Has anyone ever asked a teacher a question in a Lithuanian study class?" and found that only 5 out of 40 students had ever asked a question. Raising their hand and asking questions in front of a lot of people seems to be a high psychological hurdle. This is also seen in Lithuanian students. However, after the virtual tour, 18 students filled out open chats with questions. And Ms. Eglė answered each one politely. At Gifu University, classes were already held face-to-face, so the live video was projected on a large screen in the lecture room, However, thanks to the students who actively asked questions, the class became a two-way exchange rather than a one-way street.

VMU students are tired of online classes, but many of them are looking forward to the opportunity to interact with their Japanese peers. In the future, we will continue to make such time available in and out of classes as much as possible to leverage the strength of doing online.

Bend of Nemunas as seen from top of Škėvoniai outcrop
(Photo by: Arvydas Kumpis)

June Activity Report

30 June 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako

Lithuania is very hot in this June. Days with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius continued for several days, and it was so unbelievably hot that I couldn’t believe that Lithuania is located in the north of Europe.

Students at Vytautas Magnus University successfully finished their final online exams in early June and started their summer vacation. As a Japanese language teacher, I just want them to be exposed to Japanese during summer vacation.

The graduation ceremony was held from 21 to 23 this month. It was planned to be held online, but the relaxed rules allowed the students to wear their dream robes and hats and receive their diplomas with friends without incident in the main hall of the university. For the first time in a while, the teachers and staffs saw the bright smiles of the students up close and saw off the graduates with unusually happy feeling.

Students of East Asian Studies Program who graduated on June 23

In Lithuania, there are very few opportunities for returnees and graduates to learn Japanese. The Japanese course at VMU is 3 years, and even if you finish all the levels, you can only learn the contents of the first half of the intermediate level. Among the students who graduated from the East Asian Studies Program this year, there were a lot of students who were enthusiastic about Japanese. As a GJO coordinator and a Japanese language teacher at VMU, for a long time I have wanted to somehow increase the opportunities and places for graduates to get involved in Japanese.

So this year I started a pilot program of a short-term Japanese summer course for intermediate learners. This course includes reading, grammar, presentation, discussion, and reporting. From June 21 to July 7, there will be a total of five online classes. The theme of the course is the meaning of studying abroad. Four active students, four graduate students, and one faculty member participated. In the next activity report, I would like to introduce the contents of this course and the voices from the participants.

Gifu University, a partner university of VMU, also opened a new class this April. Its name is Lithuanian Studies. Through 15 classes, the students learn about Lithuania from various perspectives. On May 24, Dr. Aurelijus Zykas and Dr. Linas Didvalis presented the documentary film “Kaunas, The City of Sugihara and Japan*” from VMU, in which they gave a presentation as a producer. The entire movie is now available on Youtube, so if you are interested, please check out the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgc9i3WE-io
*Original title is “Kaunas. Sugiharos ir Japonijos zenklai”

On June 28, July 5 and July 12, I, Takagi, the coordinator of GJO, was in charge of the activities. In the class on June 28, I talked about the experience of living in Lithuania as a foreigner under the theme of cross-cultural understanding. At Gifu University, classes are currently held face-to-face, so the students connected to the PC in the classroom where the students gathered and delivered a lecture in the form of a live broadcast. Unlike online classes, which are individually connected via a PC, students are not allowed to speak freely (write in a chat), so in order to make it easier for participating students to make comments and ask questions, we created a room in advance through LINE's open chat and asked students to write questions there on the day. Many students casually asked me questions, probably because it was the application they usually use. Here are some of the comments from the students after the class. (Everything is in the original text.)

• (The previous part is omitted.) I was impressed by the story that there is a kind of connection between people who doesn’t have English as their mother tongue. I was also impressed by the talk about the importance of taking action, expressing one's intentions, and making one's presence known. In English class, I admire my friends who have beautiful pronunciation and speak with confidence, but I also feel that I am reluctant to speak up, so I want to assert my opinions more without fear.

• In my regular lectures, I have listened to Lithuanian people or people who had visited Lithuania in the past, but this time I had a chance to listen to a Japanese professor who actually lives in Lithuania, and I understood the internal situation of universities in Lithuania. It was a very fulfilling class. (The last part is omitted)

• I'd like to visit Lithuania someday, so it was helpful to know about the staff's response and the state of the town. I decided to put into practice what I learned today, not only for studying abroad, but also for my daily campus life.

Since the classes are aimed at various faculties and grades, there are various opinions about Lithuania and studying abroad. I hope that more people will deepen their interest in Lithuania through this class.

On July 5, presentations and group discussions will be held as a joint class with the above-mentioned summer short-term Japanese course, and on July 12, "Sugihara House Virtual Tour" will be held in cooperation with Sugihara Museum in Kaunas.

May Activity Report

8 June 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako

"I am finally free from the long online classes!" said one of the students who safely finished the spring semester class in 2021. It was a very tough semester for many people, so I really think the students who continue to attend classes are amazing. Also, I would like students who were so depressed that they could not attend classes as they wanted, to heal their mental and physical fatigue during the summer vacation. I hope I will see their healthy faces again next semester.

Well, we started this May with an online Japanese exchange with Japanese university students. This time, we not only recruited Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) students, but also a wide range of people studying Japanese in Lithuania. As a result, many students from Vilnius University attended. We also received two applications from Gymnasium (equivalent to a Japanese junior high school or high school). From Japanese universities, students from Gifu University, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and Saga University attended. In order to keep the event small and easy to talk to, we adjusted the number of participants to 20 or less, and held the event in two sessions, 15 to 16 o'clock and from 20 to 21 o'clock Japan time. 10 students from Lithuania and 15 from Japan attended and enjoyed conversation in Japanese.

We used Zoom for the event and divided into break outs where 2 or 3 people talked about themes such as "self-introduction," "hobbies and favorite things," "recommended places in Lithuania," and "what I want people to eat in Japan". I changed group members frequently so that students could talk to as many people as possible, but there were some comments from the participants, such as “Member were changed when we got excited ” and“ I wanted to talk more, ” and I felt that I need to make some improvements from the next time. Some of the Lithuanian participants talked to native speaker of Japanese for the first time at this event. Before the event, they seemed to be more anxious than having fun, but one participant commented, "The Japanese students were kind," indicating that it was a good experience for them. Japanese participants fully considering what kind of ideas would be needed to communicate with people who do not speak Japanese as their mother tongue. I think this event was not just for Lithuanian students to practice Japanese, but also a significant opportunity for Japanese students.

I would like to continue creating many opportunities for people to have compassion for and communicate with each other, rather than just a relationship of teaching and studying.

And the end of the semester is the final assignment. In the Japanese language and culture level 6 classes, the three-year project "Making a Video to Know the Significance of Learning East Asian Languages" has been completed. Students in groups or individuals interview people studying East Asian languages, videotape them, summarize what they have learned from the interview, and create a short video. The students chose their own language for the interview and told them to add Japanese subtitle all non-Japanese audio. The videos were posted on YouTube, and on the last day of the classes, students were given time to share their findings while creating the videos and to answer messages and questions from YouTube comments.

All four videos submitted were filmed and edited in unique ways, and the content was interesting. Among them, I would like to pay special attention to a video created by three students that looks like a street interview. In it, the students ask about the word "weeb.". "weeb" is an Internet slang that makes fun of white people who are extremely attached to Japanese culture, but until I watched this video, I didn't know there was such a word or concept. Through the videos they created, I learned that people studying Japanese and other East Asian languages are worried about being called "weeb" by others. On the last day of the class, I asked the students who made the video, "Who decides if a person is ‘weeb'?". One student replied, "Society decides". And the students were insisting that we were not 'weeb'. I sincerely sympathize with young people who are strongly aware of how they are perceived by others, and it is very hard for them to be labeled like this just because they study their favorite language hard. On the other hand, there is also the question of whether the division of "We are not weeb, but they are weeb" is really a good thing. I finished the last class with a message that I and other students should think about it together.

The videos made by the students can be viewed from the link below. (* The student may have deleted the video because the presentation period is over.)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLVHGekk8TIFWRVvh1B4nKAW4ohcKTNZM

April Activity Report

5 May 2021
Global Japan Office Coordinator
TAKAGI Kayako

One of the jobs most affected by COVID-19 is definitely tourism. Tourism holds a very important position in Lithuania as well, and in particular in Kaunas, which is closely related to Chiune Sugihara, many events were canceled or changed as people could no longer travel between Japan and Lithuania.

There are many people studying Japanese in Lithuania who go on to work related to tourism such as guides and interpreters. For Japanese language learners in Lithuania, these are valuable profession in which they can make use of the Japanese they have spent their time studying. To work as a guide or tour conductor for a group of Japanese tourists, you need to have appropriate Japanese language knowledge and communication skills. However, there are few educational institutions in Lithuania where you can learn intermediate or higher level of Japanese. All of the active Japanese language guides have been self-taught to improve their skills, but their experiences and knowledge have not been shared.

The "Japanese Guide Textbook Project" was established to change that situation. Based on the experience of working as tour guide, we selected nine important scenes as Japanese conversations, and organized the vocabulary and expressions necessary for each scene. We also included a number of evolutionary questions about how to act as a guide so that the exercises were not just expressive exercises. This textbook is aimed primarily at intermediate level Lithuanian speakers, but words and conversations are translated into both Lithuanian and English to make them available to as many learners as possible.

This was the completion of “Vienas vienas ... Kikoemaska”, Lithuania's first textbook for Japanese language guides. Vienas means the number 1 in Lithuanian. One of the authors, Ms. Simona Kumpė, a Japanese language instructor at our university, has a qualification of professional guide. The phrase "Vienas vienas ... Kikoemaska", which she always uses at the beginning of bus tours, became the title of her textbook.

To date, the Center for Asian Studies at VMU has produced a Lithuanian/Japanese dictionary (http://jishokun.lt/) and (https://japonukalba.vdu.lt/) a Japanese self-study textbook for Lithuanian speakers. I hope this textbook will also be useful for Lithuanian speakers studying Japanese. And I sincerely hope that the day will come as soon as possible when the learners, as a guide, will make use of the knowledge and skills they learned in this textbook.

You can download the textbook here.
https://asc.vdu.lt/lt/2021/03/first-japanese-language-textbook-for-guides-in-lithuania/?fbclid=IwAR3SqvZiFegfcci-SusPEtk08nFJJMTRC71_lfkJoDb6pWJcV7Qdx_tjl_w

At the end of this month, an online community for 'Cze-Li Society', a joint Japanese language community with Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, which has been in contact with each other for 2019 and 2020 years, started again. 16 people, including new members, participated in the meeting after a long time, and after introducing themselves, they introduced each other recommended methods of studying Japanese. The event will continue to be held every two weeks.