Kazumi Sakai - Retiring in AY2021

Since my appointment to the Hiyoshi Campus in 1997, I have been teaching German for 25 years. Combined with the eight years I spent at Seikei University, where I began working after returning to Tokyo from Berlin, my career as a German language teacher has spanned 33 years.

As a student, I studied philosophy and literature, with a focus on aesthetics. In fact, I began learning German because it was necessary for my philosophical research. However, after I started working as a German language teacher, I gradually became interested in German language pedagogy.

When I was a student, there were no universities in Japan where one could major in *Deutsch als Fremdsprache* (DaF), or "German as a Foreign Language" pedagogy (and even today, no department bears that name). In German-speaking countries, however, it was already possible to major in this field at several universities, and a growing body of research had been accumulated. The German taught in Japanese schools and universities is nothing other than DaF. Yet, I realized that German language education in Japan was, unfortunately, not based on the results of this latest scientific research.

As a faculty member, I belatedly began to study the field on my own. Around the time I moved to Keio, I decided to define my area of expertise not as aesthetics or literature, but as German language pedagogy (DaF). (This gradually expanded, and I now consider my field to be language pedagogy in general.) Since DaF was a new research area in Japan, the number of researchers was small (and still is), but I have worked with my senior and junior colleagues to do what I can to help establish this field in Japan.

In the early days, my main research area was Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), and I pursued the theme of how to enrich language education using computers. (I had no interest in the common goal of labor-saving through automation; my idea of education is something that requires time, effort, and careful attention.) One of the results of this work is the CALL classroom in Building 3 at the Hiyoshi Campus. There, I designed a classroom specifically for foreign language education, where students can engage in language activities centered on group work while using computers connected to the internet.

I have also studied European language policy. In particular, I have researched the "plurilingualism and pluriculturalism" advocated by the Council of Europe, considering how to apply it in the Japanese context. I have conducted research activities with teachers of English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Korean, exploring how to cultivate the multiple languages and cultures that intertwine and become one within each student in a Japan that is becoming increasingly multilingual and multicultural due to the influx of foreign labor. The opportunity to conduct research with many elementary, junior high, and high school teachers during this process has become a valuable asset for me.

At the same time, in recent years, I have conducted field research on the educational realities of children living with two or three languages in Europe's linguistic border regions. I have visited kindergartens through high schools in places such as Luxembourg (Luxembourgish, German, French), Alsace, France (Alsatian, French), Aosta, Italy (Franco-Provençal, Italian), South Tyrol, Italy (German, Italian, Ladin), and Malta (Maltese, English). I have then communicated, both orally and in writing, what I believe must be applied to Japan's future language policy.

All of this was driven by a single desire: to build on this foundational research to enrich language education in Japan, to open children's eyes and hearts to others both at home and abroad, and to nurture them into citizens who can coexist with others from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Of course, this desire also became the driving force behind my educational activities in the classrooms at Hiyoshi. I believe I have conducted my German language education as a form of citizenship education, with the hope of helping to foster open-minded citizens and create a peaceful, hate-free society.

(Interview conducted in January 2022)