My Experience Teaching Japanese with GLN, by Daisuke Horibe

Daisuke Horibe, GLN Leadership Fellow, Fall 2016 and Japanese Teaching Associate

Through teaching Japanese, I was able to grow as an individual and develop myself further in many ways, particularly communication, confidence, creativity, dealing with challenges, and building other skills. The experience also afforded me the opportunity to see Japan and Japanese culture from an objective viewpoint. One day during class, one of my students said that Japan isn’t tolerant of immigrants because more than 90 percent of the population is  Japanese. When I lived in Japan, I never really thought about this fact. This realization made me want to  solve this problem in Japan. I also improved as a teacher.. I remember the first Japanese class I taught. I was nervous because I had never taught Japanese in my life. Furthermore, I had to teach the entire class  in Japanese, so it was really difficult at first. However, students were really motivated to learn Japanese and really cooperative, so I was relieved in the end and enjoyed teaching the class. Although, each person’s background is different according to where they  live, their culture, and their personal characteristics, I found that it is possible to establish strong relationships regardless of nationality. This is the biggest thing that I learned from teaching my native language.

If you are thinking about  volunteering to teach with GLN, I can strongly recommend it! You will not only learn some really important things from students, you also learn to develop yourself further. You can find new potential that you never knew you had in yourself.

I wish to thank GLN for providing such an amazing experience teaching and interning and I want to encourage everyone to volunteer or teach with GLN!