Education Are volunteer instructors of Japanese hindering language progress of foreign residents?

A national survey released on Monday showed that some 80% of instructors in Japanese language classes run by local governments are volunteers, raising concerns that foreign residents attending these programmes may not be receiving adequate instruction. While it is a legal obligation of both national and local governments to provide a supportive learning environment for foreign nationals, including workers and their families, some regions still lack access to such classes due to staffing and funding shortages.

For many foreign residents, limited Japanese proficiency complicates their everyday life, making routine activities such as shopping or visiting a doctor difficult and leaving them vulnerable to missing critical disaster alerts or struggling to comply with community rules, including those for waste separation and disposal.

According to the annual survey, about 23,000 of the roughly 29,000 teachers at 1,548 Japanese language classes across the country were volunteers in fiscal 2023, with that share having hovered around 80 to 90% for more than 20 years. The number of foreigners attending in-person classes hit a record high of nearly 100,000 in fiscal 2019, but it temporarily declined until fiscal 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It then began trending upward again, reaching about 88,000 in fiscal 2023. The central government began supporting municipalities in reducing their reliance on volunteers after a law promoting Japanese language education took effect in 2019. Local officials, however, often complain the process of applying for funding is too burdensome.

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There's no evidence whatsoever in the article that volunteers are doing a bad job. In fact, it's rather insulting to people who are devoting their unpaid time to provide Japanese lessons (my own experience of receiving volunteer Japanese lessons was fairly good). The same article could have been written in a much more positive way – perhaps the government was looking into ways of supporting the many volunteers who have received limited training in teaching – but for some reason, the journalist chose not to.

A native speaker, without formally-acquired theoretical knowledge in teaching techniques but does possess enthusiasm and motivation are probably perfectly adequate for beginners. In fact I'd goes as far to say that enthusiasm is the biggest positive factor and a volunteer likely has this quality in abundance.

Lothor said:

There's no evidence whatsoever in the article that volunteers are doing a bad job. In fact, it's rather insulting to people who are devoting their unpaid time to provide Japanese lessons (my own experience of receiving volunteer Japanese lessons was fairly good). The same article could have been written in a much more positive way – perhaps the government was looking into ways of supporting the many volunteers who have received limited training in teaching – but for some reason, the journalist chose not to.

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I visited a few conversational courses organised by our local 区役所 and found the instructors extremely motivated and well-prepared, providing their own materials and copies to all participants.