Language learning——an International Engagement in Osaka

Wherever we travel, the language barrier is always a BIG problem. 

It prevents us from learning deeper and engage fully in our tourist destination. 

In my last blog, I talked about the Kansai dialect and accent spoken by Osaka people, which troubles lots of tourists and leads to place essentialism. 

Not only foreign tourists want to learn more about the local language, but local people are also eager in learning what travellers speak and mean. 

As someone who is really fascinated with language learning, the idea of a short-term bilateral language learning program comes into my mind! Additionally, during the program, participants would also  exchange their customs, culture, or something more basic, like their daily life routine or home cooking to each other.

For travellers to Osaka, 

usually spent lots of time sightseeing and shopping, and it would be HARD and UNREASONALBLE to attract or ask them to join the “learning activity” for several full days. 

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So, in my program, travellers can arrange with their travel plan as usual, 

and ONLY need to find one to two hours each day for the language-learning part.

After a whole day of travel, travellers sit in a circle with local people. They can first talk about any difficulty they met during the daytime or any new stuff they found interesting, while locals can share their views on those issues for exchange. Then, on alternate days, travellers and locals take turns teaching each other languages and introduce different local customs and cultural specialties.

To help improve the quality of the program, I may need to consult some local language learning institutions and cultural organizations in Osaka. And vice versa, one to two travellers should be nominated previously to have a basic preparation for the teaching. In these programs, my interest in language can also help me to design more interesting activities and forms to facilitate cultural exchange and more international engagement in Osaka. The THEMES could be varied from animates (e.g., Detective Conan in Osaka), Japanese TV dramas to Japanese history and myths.

It would be interesting to see how outsiders and insiders see their cultural product differently.

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In short, engagement is a bilateral issue and calls for active efforts from both travellers and locals!