In this school, students say: ‘Sensei, konnichiwa’

BINALONAN, Pangasinan—While many Japanese travel here to learn the English language from Filipinos, a group of public school students in this agricultural town has been honing up on Nihongo, the Japanese language.

Nihongo was offered as an elective for 140 third year students of  Juan G. Macaraeg National High School, the first school in the Ilocos region to offer the foreign language as a subject.

School principal Susan Mangrobang said Nihongo was offered in June after a friend gave the school two slots for a free course on the language for teachers, offered by the Japan Foundation Manila.

The students can now converse with each other in Nihongo, she said.

When the teacher entered the classroom during the Inquirer’s visit on Thursday, the students greeted her with “Sensei, konnichiwa (Good afternoon, teacher).”

The class then proceeded with their lessons for the day, all conducted in Nihongo. They also sang “Shiawase nara te o tatakuo,” the Nihongo version of the children’s song “When you’re happy and you know it [clap your hands].”

“They really enjoy learning the language,” said Juliet Estrada, one of the two teachers of Nihongo.

Student Dianne Naces, 14, said she practices the language at home with her mother and siblings. “Maybe I will teach it too, when I become a teacher. And I can use it when I visit Japan in the future,”  said Naces, who plans to pursue an education course in college.

Teacher Cristy Bautista said the students supplement the lessons by using the Internet. “Sometimes they ask for something we do not know yet. They want advance lessons,” she said.

Estrada and Bautista attended summer classes for an entry-level Nihongo language teaching course that was conducted by the Japan Foundation Manila.

They are going to attend another summer class to enable them to teach Entry 2 (second level) Nihongo, which will be offered next year for fourth year students. The foundation provided teaching materials to the school.

Representatives of the Japan Foundation visited the school recently to observe the class. The two teachers said the Japanese monitors were amazed at how fast the children learned the language. Yolanda Sotelo, Inquirer Northern Luzon