Japanese Teachers-in-Training Volunteer Service in Cambodia

Professor Yoshida’s teachers-in-training conduct an English lesson outdoors for Cambodian students in Siem Riap, Cambodia.

Professor Kensaku Yoshida, a TIRF Board member, teaches at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. Starting in 2009, he took a group of English teacher training candidates to Siem Riap, Cambodia, where Sophia University has a Personnel Development Center. The purpose of the center is to assist the Cambodian people in preserving their own history and culture, with specific concern for Angkor Wat.

Professor Yoshida notes, “The President of Sophia University, Professor Yoshiaki Ishizawa, has expressed his wish for Sophia University students to contribute to the development of Southeast Asia. When I heard a couple of years ago that there were people in Cambodia who wanted to learn English from other Asians who also had to strive to

learn English as a foreign language, I went to the President to see what he thought of our teacher-trainees (who are themselves EFL learners) going to Cambodia to teach English. He, of course, was all for it. Then I talked to the students and several expressed their desire to participate in this initiative.”

Professor Yoshida (left) with Mr. Narong, the principal of Wat Chok Junior High School in Cambodia.

In 2009, eleven Japanese teacher trainees served as volunteer EFL teachers in Cambodia in the town of Seim Riap. Ten more participated in the summer of 2010. Three of the four college seniors who went to Cambodia in 2009 travelled all the way to Siem Riap again to support and encourage the present teacher-trainees, and to and meet some of their own Cambodian students from 2009. The teacher-trainees themselves raised the money to defray the cost of the project. In 2010, they also received a grant from a Sony international volunteer foundation (without help from any of their professors) to pay for part of the expenses.

Sophia University English teachers-in-training have been going to different parts of Japan for the past 40 years to teach English to local junior high and elementary school students. In 2010, there were about 100 teacher trainees working in six different cities around Japan, teaching a total of nearly 400 children. One of the students who went to Cambodia this year was himself a junior high school student who took part in this program as an English language learner in his city several years ago.

Professor Yoshida says, “I want my students to experience the kind of motivation children in other parts of the world have towards education in general, and especially towards learning English. My hope is for my students to realize the importance of education and the learning of English for the Cambodian children’s future, as well as the future of their country. Hopefully, they will become more aware the importance of learning English in Japan as well.”