August, 2015: Breeze Issue #94

A Free Monthly E-Newsletter for Friends of Japan & Teachers of Japanese

Japanese Language Education Update #21:
The School Hunt Continues

by Amanda Rollins, Japanese Language Program Coordinator

The Japan Foundation is the only organization which attempts to gather data about all the schools around the world teaching Japanese language. We do this by conducting a global institutional survey, the Survey on Japanese-Language Education Abroad. The results of this survey help us decide how best to allocate funding and which support programs would be most beneficial in which regions. We also make the results public in an online database where people can search for Japanese-teaching schools around the globe.

Answering the Survey is actually quite beneficial: Schools which answer the survey are entered into our public online database, increasing their visibility to potential students who are hoping to learn Japanese in their region. Survey respondents also receive a free set of teaching materials and will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a $100 Kinokuniya BookWeb gift certificate. In addition, all survey respondents will be given free access to a summary of the overall results of the survey.

JF does this massive global undertaking every three years, and the time has come again! During this upcoming fall semester, JFLA staff will be hard at work emailing and calling America schools to request that a representative answer the Survey. Before the work of the survey actually begins, however, there is a lot of preparation to be done. Right now, JFLA staff is “hunting” for schools which teach Japanese in order to send them the survey this fall.

How do you hunt for schools which teach Japanese? There are several ways. For one, we work closely with many education-related organizations and teachers’ associations who are kind enough to keep us in the loop about their local schools. Also, some states maintain online school databases which you can search with the keyword “Japanese,” or you can send their staff a “data request” asking for a list of schools which teach Japanese. Also, you’d be surprised by what turns up with a simple Google or Yelp search.

Good hunting, JFLA!

If you know about any schools which opened a Japanese language program within the last three years, please let us know at survey@jflalc.org. Your help is much appreciated!