2010

2010/11/15

Shopping Tour with Tsuda College Students

On November 1^st, Tsuda College students (who are learning how to teach Japanese to foreigners) came to our school and had a program called "Shopping Tour with Tsuda College Students" for TYiS foreign parents. The purpose of this program was to find ways to help foreigners' daily activities in Japan more comfortable.

As part of this program, Tsuda College students came to our school several times to ask TYiS foreign parents what types of problems or difficulties they experienced during their daily life in Japan. After the interviews, Tsuda students found that many foreign parents are able to speak Japanese but, have difficulty reading Kanji. Especially when shopping, they encounter many Kanji characters which are hard to read and understand. This makes it a challenge when buying new kinds of items without being able to read the labels.

Tsuda students decided to go to the supermarket with the parents and shop together. Before shopping, they gathered at the school and taught a few important Kanji characters that are often used at the supermarket like 新鮮(fresh), 期間限定(for a limited time only), お買い得(bargain) etc.

"Why are there many kinds of rice?"

"What is go-ya? (a popular vegetable in Okinawa prefecture)"

"How do you cook dashi-maki-tamago? (Japanese egg roll)"

"What's the sweet sauce that is used with meatballs?"

Parents who participated in this shopping tour bought many new kinds of food that they had never bought before and they enjoyed this new experience. After shopping, everyone had lunch together and talked about their life in Japan and their own culture in their home countries. It was a great chance for parents and Tsuda students to share new cultural information and make new friends!

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