We held foreign language courses entitled "Language Courses to Improve Hospitality ("Omotenashi") to Foreign People" from June 6 to August 8, 2017, with the aim of improving communication skills to deal with an increasing number of foreign tourists visiting Japan.
More than 30 people took part in the courses, and many of them were operators involved in the tourism industry and administrative officers.
The first 4 lessons were dedicated to English, and the 5th and the 6th lessons to Spanish, the 7th and the 8th to Chinese, and the last 2 lessons to Italian.
The lecturer of English lessons was Ms. Ito, a secretariat of Miyako International Association, and Mr. Gordon Chan, who works as an assistant language teacher at various schools in Miyako, joined our lessons as a special lecturer.
Mr. Chan, a special lecturer, and Ms. Yamaguchi, a city employee, during an English lesson
The lecturer of Spanish lessons was Mr. Nieda Tsuyoshi Eduardo, who also acted as a lecturer at the Mexican cuisine cooking class earlier this year.
For Chinese lessons, we asked Mr. Yuki Ida to be a lecturer. He studied Chinese in Beijing for two years. The participants were struggling with the difficult pronunciation of Chinese, and were surprised to find many differences and similarities between Japanese and Chinese languages.
Mr. Nieda during a Spanish lesson
Mr. Ida and the participants listening to his explanation enthusiastically
The lecturer of Italian lessons was Ms. Ito of Miyako International Association, who lived in Italy for 9 years. It seemed that many participants had difficulty with the complicated Italian grammar.
For many of the participants, it was probably the first opportunity to be exposed to foreign languages other than English, such as Spanish, Chinese, and Italian. We hope that they could broaden their horizon and increase their knowledge learning various foreign languages and culture.
