I established the school with some friends 30 years ago when working as a Japanese language instructor, with the aim of realizing our ideology. The keyword in our ideology was ‘happiness’.
Happiness for us as Japanese language instructors is ‘good students, good fellow instructors, and a good environment’, and these go on to produce a good curriculum and results. ‘Good’ here means highly motivated rather than ‘superior’ – motivated students, motivated instructors and staff and an environment which stimulates motivation. Students and instructors can be ‘happy’ only when these three elements come together.
How should we go about achieving this? One of the answers we came up with to thisquestion was a ‘multinational environment’. If students are of differing nationalities, not only does Japanese inevitably become the only common language but activities within the classroom are also more vivacious since an interest in one another is naturally invoked. At the same time having a multinational environment requires ingenuity and flexibility on the part of the instructor.
In other words, instructors cannot work unless they are motivated, and through an approach based on always making suitable preparations, students’ motivation can be stimulated and the classroom enlivened. This in turn creates a positive cycle in which instructors are increasingly inspired.
Here, so as not to ruin the multinational balance since our establishment, and as a result of undertaking stringent recruiting whilst keeping an eye on the makeup of the classroom, we have grown into a school at which, at present, at any one point in time, has students from between 40 and 50 countries and which is brimming with the motivation to study and vitality. All instructors and staff working at the school feel proud and happy to be working on behalf of such students.
One other aspect which is extremely important in creating the school is the safety of the classrooms and office. Surprisingly this is an issue which is rarely talked about but in fact, as far as the school is concerned, caring for our instructors and staff is more important than anything else. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the atmosphere in the classrooms and office dominates the school. However wonderful our ideology and theories are, they cannot be achieved if instructors and staff lack motivation.
To this end we take great pains to create an atmosphere, actively undertaking activities such as information exchange between instructors and study meetings, and as a result we have now come to be acknowledged as being a group of studious and highly inquisitive instructors.
We have recently been commissioned to create many Japanese language training programs both within Japan and overseas and to create educational materials and we are continuing to expand our operations. However, this has not altered our desire to take great care of our students, instructors and staff. Looking to the next 30 years we would like to express our gratitude to past students, instructors and staff and to work to create a school brimming with the motivation to study and vitality.
Thank you for your support.
KAI Japanese Language School Representative
Hiroko YAMAMOTO
