Rural school kids in Satara learn Japanese, will take official exams | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Rural school kids in Satara learn Japanese, will take official exams

ByNiraj Pandit
Apr 10, 2023 12:57 AM IST

Jadhav’s own initiation into Japanese began when he started reaching out to children during the pandemic lockdown and telling them stories on the phone. Mukund Chaskar, a linguist of Indian origin from Japan, contacted him after reading the news, and told him he was willing to teach him the Japanese language for free. With this email began Jadhav’s foreign language learning and teaching journey

Mumbai: In a pioneering initiative, students from a zilla parishad (ZP) school in the drought-prone Man taluka of Satara district are now proficient in reading, writing, communicating and even doing mathematics in Japanese. Balaji Jadhav, the only teacher at the school, has made it his mission to give rural students a global platform and has successfully taught the Japanese language to 40 students from classes 1 to 4. In the next academic year, these students will appear for official examinations in Japanese.

Rural school kids in Satara learn Japanese, will take official exams
Rural school kids in Satara learn Japanese, will take official exams

While talking about this idea, Jadhav said he believed that learning a foreign language at a young age was crucial, as it opened up a world of opportunities and benefits. “Many students in today’s society aim to work abroad after graduation, but their lack of knowledge of the language of the country they wish to work in limits their opportunities,” he said. “With this in mind, I introduced Japanese language lessons in the school, which have proven to be a huge success.”

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The teaching process began by playing Japanese videos to the students for two to three weeks to help them grasp some basic concepts. “After they picked these up, I began showing them dialogues in Japanese, which, too, they developed an interest in,” he said. “There are three types of scripts in the Japanese language, and we started teaching students the one called Hiragana. After they learned five to six letters of the alphabet, we started reading and writing in our spare time. By creating small words from letters, reading them, and writing small words in the Japanese script, they picked up speed. My students can now reel off the names of animals, birds, months, fruits, flowers, relatives and so on in Japanese. It took them about four months to learn all this.”

Jadhav’s own initiation into Japanese began when he started reaching out to children during the pandemic lockdown and telling them stories on the phone. Mukund Chaskar, a linguist of Indian origin from Japan, contacted him after reading the news, and told him he was willing to teach him the Japanese language for free. With this email began Jadhav’s foreign language learning and teaching journey.

“I am hearing and reading about future opportunities in Japan, especially for Indian students, through many videos and conferences. This is one more reason I chose the Japanese language,” he said.

Laxman Pise, an education extension officer of the panchayat samiti, Man tehsil, praised Jadhav’s initiative and hard work in trying to bring government schools up to the level of private schools. “When I visited this school, I was amazed to see the progress of the children,” he said. “They speak Japanese so beautifully as if it were their mother tongue.”

Indira Narale, a mother of Class 4 student Pragat Narale, said she was happy and proud that her child could speak in Japanese. “Till today, not a single teacher has made this sort of effort in our village,” she said. “We are so thrilled about the opportunities that the school and Jadhav Sir are providing to our children.”

Jadhav has written to the Japanese consulate in India about his initiative and is waiting for a response on the process of students’ enrollment for Japanese language examinations. His efforts are opening up a world of opportunities for these students from the rural areas and could pave the way for similar initiatives across the country. He plans to continue teaching different languages to his students alongside their daily studies, providing them with an edge over others in the future.

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