Japanese Calligraphy Workshop: NORIKO FUKUSHIMA

This academic year has certainly been the year of languages for us so far.  Because we can't forget that EOI means "School of Languages", not only English, and even though we only offer English classes at the moment, we aim at offering students the opportunity to at least get a taste of other languages. 

Nous avons eu une pièce de théâtre, “Petite pension à Paris”, écrite et mise en scène par Fernando F. Garcia, le 28 Novembre 2015. It was awesome because even though French was the main language being used throughout, they also included dialogues in Italian and German.

Now, last Tuesday, February 23 we hit a milestone in our satellite branch here in Ribeira. As part of our creative writing project, we had thought about the idea of having a Japanese and an Arabic calligraphy workshop here, to introduce students to the writing systems of these languages that are normally regarded as "complex" or "difficult".

Well, thanks to Noriko Fukushima, a Japanese lady who also happens to be a student in the satellite school in Noia, this dream has finally come true!

Noriko gave us some insight into the history of Katakana and Hiragana alphabets and also into why Kanji is also used in Japanese. She also explained how the writing systems have evolved until their present form and use.

 

Attendees paid close attention and took notes. Then came the part that thrilled everyone, regardless of age or interest in Japanese. Noriko had prepared a worksheet with the Katakana and Hiragana alphabets for us and then she asked us to write our names using them.

We all tried our best and found out that it was actually quite complex! Thankfully, Noriko was kind enough to offer individual help and solve our doubts.

Then, Noriko had us practise the correct order of the strokes in each character, patiently explaining how to do it.  Finally, there were some questions about how long it took children to learn how to write correctly, and whether it was hard for them to learn the Latin alphabet, which she also explained in detail.

I had the opportunity to discuss the workshop later with some of the students who attended and they all agreed it was really refreshing to learn about a language we know nothing about, and that it was a real pleasure to listen to Noriko's polished English pronunciation!

We really would like to thank Noriko for preparing, coming all the way to Ribeira and give us such a nice presentation!