Machida High School
This year, Machida High School received five foreign exchange students for the Tokyo Experience School program. It was only for a period of a few days, but four of the students joined our first grade classes, and one joined the second grade classes. Centering mostly on the exchange students' buddies, several of our students supported them in their school-life here. Watching them try to overcome the language barrier and communicate with one another was quite remarkable.
After school, the exchange students were given a tour of the different club activities by their buddies. Our school also has a tea ceremony and ikebana club, which is overseen by an external teacher. This teacher kindly offered to hold a flower arranging lesson on Monday and a tea ceremony lesson on Wednesday for the exchange students to experience. Also, since one of the days the exchange students were here for was a day set aside for mock exams, two of our faculty members gave them a tour of Kamakura, so they could experience more Japanese traditions.
On their final day, each of the classes the exchange students attended took a group photograph, shared contact details and said emotional farewells. Many of our students still have difficulty communicating in English, but it seems that the Machida students have used their personalities to overcome the language barrier and make very human, personal connections with the exchange students. We hope to continue actively making opportunities for our students to have cultural exchanges with foreign high school students.
This concludes the reports of the schools hosting the foreign exchange students. The following are comments from facilities and workshops that the Tokyo Municipal Board of Education arranged visits for during their stay.
TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery and Tokyo Anime Center DNP facility tours
The exchange students visited the TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery, in Gaiemmae, Minato-ku on Thursday, July 12th.
The TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery gathers cutting-edge technologies in various fields that support the enrichment of our society and economy, and makes them available for everyone, from the next generation of youth, to everyone else, to see up close, touch and move, whenever they want. It is a hands-on exhibition facility that allows visitors to experience and come to understand advanced technologies in a fun and familiar way. There are classes held here, from robot programming classes, to classrooms where visitors can experience using 3D data and 3D printers.
In the tours, visitors were given an easy-to-understand introductory guide by the attendants. They were also given clear technical explanations, and had the opportunity to touch cutting-edge technologies that even most Japanese people don't usually get to see.
The foreign exchange students took everything in intently, and enthusiastically participated in the various experiences, especially the nursing robots and related technologies.
After visiting the TEPIA Advanced Technology Gallery, we went to the Tokyo Anime Center, located in Ichigaya, and saw the exhibits relating to Japanese animation.
Origami Experience
The Tokyo Experience School also places great importance on foreign exchange students being exposed to Japanese traditional culture. On Monday, July 16th (a national holiday), we held an origami experience workshop, for all of the exchange students and their host families to attend. We invited a specialist origami teacher to lead the workshop, and conducted a full-scale origami experience, spanning from the basics, to putting theory into practice.
In the workshop, the origami teacher first spoke about the Japanese origami culture and its intricacies, then after receiving an explanation, everyone made card cases and other items using origami cranes and chiyogami.
The exchange students seemed unfamiliar with this task, at first, but were all able to make beautiful items with the help of their host families.
Following the workshop, we explored Harajuku.
The foreign exchange students remained with their homestay families until Tuesday, July 19th, and all safely returned to their home countries.
According to the questionnaire filled out by the foreign exchange students, they were almost 100% satisfied, overall, and they had a tremendous amount of cultural exchange with their classmates and host families. They have made lifelong friends, and many have said that they would like to come back to Japan, in the future.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education will continue to accept foreign exchange students and will provide opportunities for international exchange with students from abroad while they are in Japan, and in order to foster rich international understanding in our students.
