Yamazaki elementary school

International Friendship Dept.

Yamazaki elementary school

International Education Program

Theme : Look at the world

The international education program in Yamazaki elementary school was held on Tuesday, February 22 in 2011, to have a new look at Japanese cultures, to understand foreign cultures, and to exchange with foreign lecturers.
Three foreign lecturers from three countries were invited and four NIA staffs joined.
Yamazaki elementary school was founded in 1980. It has 12 classes, 377 pupils in total, and 2 classes, 70 fifth-grader pupils attended the program.

The lecturers introduced themselves to attended pupils.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (former Ceylon, named Sri Lanka from 1972) gained independence from UK in 1948.
The lecturer, Ms. Nadeeka Basnayake, gave explanations of Sri Lanka (the national flag, geography, population, history, cultures, education system, elementary school, food, animals, customs, simple words, children’s play, etc.) with her voice full of life and in full of humor.
In Q&A time, Ms. Nadeeka was confused by the question “How old are you?”
The pupils seemed to be surprised to hear that more than 70% of people were Buddhist.
Ms. Nadeeka answered “nadasousou” when she was asked what her favorite Japanese songs were?” Most of the pupils were impressed to hear that and seemed to have a friendly feeling toward her.

Malaysia

Showing the map, the lecturer, Ms. Akiho Suzuki, introduced Malaysian culture, language, and industry. She explained that the weather of Malaysia was mild all the year, and there were a lot of Japan’s overseas enterprises in Malaysia.
There are more than 230 nameless islands in Malaysia.
The state religion is Islam. Islam spreads mostly in native Malaysians. Most of Chinese Malaysians are Buddhist and most of Indian Malaysians are Hindu.
The school education consists of elementary school (6 years), junior high school (3 years), high school (2 years), preparatory school (2 years) and university (3~6 years).
Finally, the pupils sang a familiar song in chorus in Malaysian language, tried on a native costume, and enjoyed playing game. They surely deepened their understanding of Malaysia.

China (Hong Kong)

The lecturer was Ms. Lilly Chong. She took charge of the same program in Kawama elementary school on February 10.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and its view at night is very famous.
The pupils got explanations that 1) Hong Kong was returned from UK to China fourteen years ago, 2) it has a population of seven million, and 3) it has a structure of “one country, two systems”.
They sang a song “the song of numbers” in Cantonese.
They practiced speaking some simple greeting words (good morning, good afternoon, good bye, thank you, etc.) in Cantonese.
Some pupils were taking notes on the lecture. It was admirable.

The lecturers, the principal, and NIA staffs

This program would be fruitful if the pupils would find that there are a lot of countries which have their own climate and cultures, and that mutual understanding is possible.