Shin-Eiken Online International Forum
Nov. 15th (Sun.) 2020 (20:30 ~ 21:20)
Preparatory meeting for International Forum
―Reports on School education activities under COVID-19 pandemic -
About Shin-Eiken Online International Forum
Due to the worldwide spread of the novel Corona virus infection since January 2020, school education activities of every country have been forced to stall or cancel. They have been obliged to shorten conventional "face-to-face" classes, and instead, conduct "online" or "hybrid-type" classes.
We Shin-Eiken have made international exchanges for years with English teachers' groups in Republic of Korea (KETG) and Taiwan through dispatching its delegation to the national conventions mutually. But the raging pandemic has made us cancel these exchanges from 2020.
For months we had an ardent desire to resume international exchanges of any possible type under the hard situations. Then we finally came up with an idea to hold an international forum online last November, and called upon these two organizations to join it for exchanging English class works under the unprecedented crisis.
As a preparatory meeting of the above "International Forum", on November 15th, we held an online meeting between KETG, a Taiwan English group and Shin-Eiken. We five participants each reported on "Educational activities under hardships of the CORONA plague." The meeting was followed by the "1st Intl Forum" on December 20th last year and the "2nd Intl Forum" on March 20th this year. The former forum was attended by 6 Taiwanese and 12 Japanese teachers, and the latter forum by 39 teachers (16 overseas teachers from 8 countries and 23 Japanese counterparts) .
As for the 2nd Forum, we initially expected some teachers from Taiwan and South Korea to participate. Then, 5 teachers in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Tunisia and South Korea who participated into the "Oleander Initiative", peace education program in Boston, initiated by Mr. Ray Matsumiya, and 7 teachers from iEARN-Taiwan joined it. Regarding the Initiative, member teachers of Shin-Eiken have hosted a reception to welcome the teachers on August 1st from 2017 through 2019 in Tokyo, which contributed to increasing the number of the total participants. (by Katsuyuki Nara)
2020年1月に世界を襲った新型コロナウィルス感染症拡大により、学校が休校となったり、従来の「対面」での授業の代わりに、「オンライン」や「混合型」で授業をせざるおえなくなりました。また、さまざまな研究会での会合や交流をすることも困難となりました。