For the latter half of the semester, I decided to try volunteering at a local nursery school, since I thought it might be a good opportunity to practice my Japanese speaking and listening skills in a relaxed environment. As might be expected, things were a little awkward at first. For one, I struggled a lot to understand anything the kids said. It’s hard enough for me to understand small children babbling in my native language, let alone in Japanese. On top of that, I was not very experienced in dealing with kids in general, so even without the language barrier, I sometimes had trouble figuring out how to interact with them properly.<\/p>\n
The good thing about working with kids, however, is that they’re pretty interested in you regardless. For them, it’s very rare to interact with a foreigner, so everything about you in generally fascinating. Without really trying, I came to be pretty well liked, and often had various kids asking me to play with them. I feel like this is really one of the strong points of volunteering with children; while adults, especially in a business setting, can be difficult to approach, kids are much less intimidating and much more inclusive. I was really surprised to find that the kids were pretty willing to explain words you don’t know, and were never too put out if you don’t completely understand them. Because of that, I feel like I was really able to learn a lot about Japanese language that I wouldn’t get from just a classroom experience.<\/p>\n
It can be comforting, too, to realize that Japanese children are not so different from us when we were kids. They entertain themselves in many of the same ways I did when I was little, like playing house. Of course, there are certain cultural differences; for example, it took me a while to learn some of the cartoons they like. Really, though, that’s just another part of the fun. As I got to know them better, I became more easily able to relate with them, and all of the awkwardness I felt originally vanished.<\/p>\n
All and all, I found that volunteering at the daycare was a very non-stressful way to interact with the Japanese community, and get an interesting glimpse of modern Japanese life. While I had some minor issues at first, overcoming them became a great learning opportunity. Being able to understand the kids’ speech and getting a sense for how to speak properly with them really provided a boost in the listening and speaking area of Japanese that I had always really struggled with. If you’re looking for a CIP that’s both meaningful and fun, I really recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the latter half of the semester, I decided to try volunteering at a local nursery school, since I thought … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080