Foreign children’s Japanese language skills are a key to their success in Japan’s education system, but teachers need to be able to communicate with their guardians as well. Tech tools are coming to the fore as solutions enabling this vital connection between home and school.
The Info Parents Need in the Languages They Know
At Ōarai Elementary School in the town of Ōarai, Ibaraki, students with international backgrounds make up a significant portion of the 400-child student body. About 1 in 10 have roots in foreign countries, such as Indonesia.
After classes end for the day, Japanese language teacher Kikuchi Takako starts typing at her computer. The tool she’s using is called E-Tra Note, a multilingual correspondence log designed to support communication with the non-Japanese-speaking guardians of her students. Using this system, she is able to send class and grade announcements to households in their native languages, which she has registered in advance.
E-Tra Note, displayed in Indonesian on the left and Japanese on the right. (© Wakabayashi Hideki)
The teachers have no need to learn the other languages to communicate with student families. E-Tra Note contains 500 commonly used school phrases and words that have been translated by professionals. Teachers simply select the phrases and words in order, and the software prepares the notifications for families. When the messages are sent, parents receive an email in their language of choice. Photos and illustrations can also be attached. “I use it so much that I can’t imagine how I’d be able to communicate with these families without it,” Kikuchi says.
Communicating everyday school requests to parents can be a challenge when there are language and cultural differences. For example, students particularly in lower grades often need to bring empty containers, such as boxes and bottles, from home for arts and crafts or other classes. However, teacher instructions written only in children’s correspondence notebooks (renrakuchō) may not always get the message across. “If parents receive an email in their native language and photos are attached, they are much more likely to respond,” Kikuchi explains.
A class at Ōarai Elementary, where a tenth of the student body has a foreign background. (© Tanaka Keitarō)
The system includes terms for basic school supplies (such as indoor shoes, colored pencils, and aprons for cooking classes) and covers most school events, including sports days and school trips. Teachers select the different situations they need to communicate, including everything from rough weather conditions requiring guardians to come pick up their children or the need to submit a questionnaire. E-Tra Note then displays a range of pretranslated template sentences that the teachers combine to create the appropriate message. The system can generate more than 20,000 types of notifications in all, enabling schools to deliver information that fits each specific circumstance.
Select a situation to view a number of potentially appropriate sentences. (© Wakabayashi Hideki)
A Boost to Remote Connectivity from COVID-19
Onuma Masami, principal of Ōarai Elementary School. (© Tanaka Keitarō)
Principal Onuma Masami remembers clearly what it was like before Ōarai Elementary rolled out the software. “When the school suddenly closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers had to call the parents of foreign children one by one and explain to them when the school would be closed, or tell them what sort of health conditions would require their kids to stay home. But many of the parents were uncomfortable with this all happening in Japanese. Also, the process was simply inefficient. We decided to introduce E-Tra Note when we learned that it could be adapted to support Indonesian. Now, communication with parents is much swifter.”
The software enables smooth communication in both directions. When guardians need to provide information to the school, such as reporting a partial or full-day absence, they can simply select messages such as “My child won’t be at school today” or “I will send my child to school now” in their native languages, and the school can view these sent messages in Japanese.
The Japanese language classroom at Ōarai Elementary School displays greetings in multiple languages. (© Tanaka Keitarō)
Reducing the Burden on Teachers
Wakabayashi Hideki, visiting associate professor at Utsunomiya University. (© Tanaka Keitarō)
This digital correspondence log system was conceived by Wakabayashi Hideki, a visiting associate professor at Tochigi Prefecture’s Utsunomiya University, and developed and distributed by the major printing company Toppan. The service is inexpensive, costing just ¥5,000 per school per month irrespective of the number of users. It’s been adopted by around 160 institutions nationwide, mainly elementary and junior high schools.
Wakabayashi used to teach English at a junior high level. At one point he was put in charge of a Japanese language class for foreign students, and he devoted considerable time and effort to communicating and building trust with the children’s families.
However, he saw that many teachers struggled with this communication process and felt stressed by it. Much of the information sent from schools to homes, such as details about what students need to bring, homework, school trips, and events, was delivered through handouts and memos written in Japanese. However, the parents were not always able to fully understand the information. As a result, teachers sometimes had to explain the details by phone or through home visits, and language assistants were being overwhelmed with translation tasks. In some cases, this ultimately reduced the time available for education.
Drawing on his years of experience at the frontlines of education, Wakabayashi devised what eventually would become E-Tra Note. At the prototype stage, it won the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Award in the 2019 Multilingual Speech Translation Contest. “Communicating in foreign languages is not really the core responsibility of teachers,” says Wakabayashi. “I realized that we needed a system that would allow teachers to communicate accurately and concisely with families in Japanese, so that they could focus on education—their primary responsibility.”
As the system relies on combinations of correctly translated preset sentences, it is able to prevent most erroneous transmission of information. Wakabayashi says, “Translation through smartphone apps and such are available, but at this stage, mistranslations can’t be completely avoided, and there are languages for which machine translation doesn’t work well. What’s important is that schools are able to communicate with parents accurately.”
E-Tra Note initially started with nine languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, and Urdu. It now supports 11 after adding Dari and Pashto, the official languages of Afghanistan.
Home study is essential for improving both academic and Japanese language ability, and the understanding and support of parents of foreign children are crucial in helping these students develop a habit of studying at home. While language barriers cannot be eliminated entirely, tech-based communication tools can encourage parents to become more involved with their children’s learning and their schools, which can also have a positive impact on academic progress.
Reducing Problems and Building Trust
The children also appreciate E-Tra Note. Ngenget Yukimi is a sixth grader who has Indonesian roots but was born in Japan. Her mother cannot fully understand Japanese. “When my mom reads the notifications on E-Tra Note, she can remind me to bring the things I need, so it’s helpful,” she says. Sumaran Kenzo, also a sixth grader, says, “I don’t always know how the best ways to explain things, so I use E-Tra Note to get the information on events and parent observation days to my mom.”
Sumaran Kenzo (left) and Ngenget Yukimi. (© Tanaka Keitarō)
Principal Onuma reiterates the effectiveness of the multilingual correspondence log system: “It lets children engage in learning and school events without having to worry,” he says. “If parents don’t understand school communications, problems are sure to occur, so when they get the information they need, that’s a major benefit.”
Still, challenges remain. Some parents do not read the emails or respond to them. Others may not even notice the messages because their inboxes are crowded with other notifications. At Ōarai Elementary School, teachers tell students when they have sent a message through E-Tra Note and ask them to remind their parents to check it. This helps prevent important information from being missed.
Wakabayashi stresses the significant role E-Tra Note plays between schools and families. “Information is what builds trust. The first step in creating a relationship of trust is accurately communicating to parents what’s happening at school on a day-to-day basis, with the same information being made available to all. I believe it’s fundamental to education that everyone, whether Japanese or from another country, is able to stay connected.”
E-Tra Note also lets teachers choose response options for parents to select. (© Wakabayashi Hideki)
The number of foreign children continues to grow in Japan, and their countries of origin are becoming more and more diverse. E-Tra Note is expected to continue to play an important role in connecting schools and families, an area that Japanese language education alone cannot address.
(Originally published in Japanese; school information and student grades are accurate as of the 2025 academic year. Banner photo: Kikuchi Takako, a Japanese language instructor, and an E-Tra Note screen displaying an email sent to parents in Indonesian. © Tanaka Keitarō.)