Megumi Yoshieda
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
About
Megumi Yoshieda teaches at a FIlipino ethnic school in Aichi for ten years. It started after she came back to Japan from her stay in the Phillipines. Chilcren at school are from pre-K to high school, and the range of their Japanese language proficiency and cultral backgrounds are as wide as it could be. Besides teaching English at several Japanese universities embedding activities on intercultural communications, she often gets inspired by FIlipino children's intercultural communicative skills verbally and non-verbally. In this conference, I would be happy to introduce the 23 year-long trial of the FIlipino school to support these vulnerable children in receiveing education in Japan. You are all welcome.Sessions
On-line presentation (research report on practice and activities) (30 minutes) Supporting Filipino Children to Receive Public Education in Japan: A 23 Year-Long Trial as an Ethnic School in Aichi more
Sun, Nov 28, 12:30-13:00 Asia/Tokyo
Though Aichi records the top in Filipino population among Japan (Aichi Prefecture, 2020), children with Filipino background are often found not enrolling in public education. Even among those enrolled, the prefecture reports that around 1,600 Filipino students require Japanese language support. In addition, the number of children who do not go to school in Aichi is expected to be 1,846 (Nikkei.com, 2019). Realizing multi-culture in school is still on the way. What can we do to have all children receive equal rights to join quality education? Since 1998, Ecumenical Learning Center for Children: ELCC has educated more than 400 children who were at home due to vulnerable status or language barriers. Since staff members and teachers became aware that the barriers of enrolling were not only from language but also from culture, programs such as serving miso-soup and holding Tagalog lessons are now in the curriculum. This report shows how an ethnic school in Aichi has accepted unenrolled children with Filipino background, and prepared them to enter public schools. The research aims to know the current support ELCC provides, and to further seek for improvement in the educational environment to secure equal education for all. The study first reports the activities of the school, and then analyzes the interview and survey results from the staff members, volunteer teachers, the former students and their parents. The data revealed that language and cultures are the major issues in transfer to a local school. Moreover, successful attempts made by ELCC to reduce these burdens in enrolling public education are acknowledged. Furthermore, necessary improvement to lessen the barriers in public schools are proposed in terms of their language, intercultural communication, culture and identity in order to reduce the cases of withdrawal.