What led your path to joining the team at Kyoto JaLS?
Before joining JaLS, I ran my own Japanese green tea business. It can be said that green tea is a physical manifestation of the Japanese identity. In order to connect the people of the world, I worked to share its history and the way Japanese people think about green tea. Now, while still running my business, I work to help people understand the Japanese heart and spirit through Japanese language education.
Can you tell us about your role as the Manager of Kyoto JaLS?
As the manager of Kyoto JaLS, I am responsible for the training of staff and teachers, class and activity planning, student support, and general operations of the school. While doing all of this, I make sure to talk to all of the students, getting to know them individually, understanding their goals and dreams, and providing whatever support they need to make them a reality.
What is your favorite part of interacting with students and working to meet their expectations?
By talking to students, I discover something new every day. As I learn about trends in other countries and what foreign people find intriguing about Japan, it feels like I am traveling the world without physically going anywhere.
What is something exciting for students to experience while living in Japan?
Japan has many different foods each with their own rich history. There is delicious food wherever you go and each region has its own distinct food culture. There are so many types of foods unique to Japan that cannot be seen in other parts of the world, and there’s not enough time to discover them all no matter how long you are here.
What challenges do students often face in Japan and while learning Japanese and how do you help them overcome them?
The biggest struggle would probably be talking with Japanese people in Japanese and finding opportunities to learn about Japan from them. At JaLS, many Japanese people come to use the same space as our students. JaLS students make friends with those people while speaking in Japanese, discussing and learning about each other cultures and countries. I hope everybody will come visit us someday.
Why is it important for students to travel and learn new languages?
By traveling to a new land, you see a new world and develop a desire to talk to the people who live there. In order to do so, it is necessary to learn their language and this stirs up the curiosity to learn. Depending on how you experience and use new languages, it is possible to learn even more about different places, their people, and even your own country and people since this gives birth to the urge to have conversations. This wonderful cycle is what makes life so rich.
What hopes do you have for the future of at Kyoto JaLS and your students?
There is always something to new to discover in Kyoto and that’s what makes the city so exciting. We are always working on new programs to help our students enjoy Kyoto to its fullest and we hope that people will visit us for as long as they possibly can.
I believe that they will find Japan even more interesting than they could have anticipated.
