{"id":16183,"date":"2015-11-02T13:46:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T04:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/?p=16183"},"modified":"2016-10-18T11:51:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T02:51:35","slug":"a-movement-aimed-at-a-multicultural-society-manager-of-an-english-conversation-school-for-cultural-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/attention-en\/2015\/11\/02\/16183\/","title":{"rendered":"No.626 A movement aimed at a multicultural society Manager of an English conversation school for cultural understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Second year, School of International Liberal Studies
\nNaomi Iwazawa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Naomi Iwazawa works as a representative for Culmony, an English conversation school for young children up to the lower grades of elementary school to learn cross-cultural understanding. Iwazawa\u2019s mother is Czech, while her father is Japanese; she was mostly raised in Japan up to the sixth year of elementary school. Despite her mixed-heritage appearance, Iwazawa was unable to speak English, which she was sometimes bullied for. She also felt resistance toward an elementary school education which strived to make her the same as every other student. Among other things, she later studied in Germany, and now speaks multiple foreign languages.<\/p>\n

\"Iwazawa

Iwazawa (right) interacting with some of her children<\/p><\/div>\n

Based on these experiences, Iwazawa started Culmony, a combination of the words \u201cculture\u201d and \u201charmony.\u201d \u201cChildren implicitly believe they are capable of speaking English and are able to break down barriers to other cultures quickly. What they experience during their formative years is important,\u201d says Iwazawa. In addition to English speaking countries, a diverse array of international students from nations such as India, France, and Spain serve as teachers, instructing students not only on English conversation but also introducing cultures different from that of Japan, such as showing them Indian picture stories and trying on cultural outfits from other nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important is not \u2018likes and dislikes\u2019 but rather recognizing our differences,\u201d Iwazawa emphasizes. Iwazawa will continue working to further expand her activities, stating, \u201cI want to start a social movement where people can respect each other\u2019s differences and accept multicultural coexistence meekly.\u201d
\n——————————————————————————————<\/p>\n

\u25a0Iwazawa graduated from Senri International School of Kwansei Gakuin. After graduating elementary school, she spent 3 years at an international school in Germany, where she engaged in intense study of foreign languages. Iwazawa operates Culmony together with friends in the School of International Liberal Studies and has schools in Kugayama and Roppongi. She is also starting a one-on-one course called \u201cMarukaru Academy\u201d (based on the word \u201cmulticultural\u201d) for children up to the age of junior high school students. Iwazawa is currently accepting applications for members to participate in school operation (info@culmony.com).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second year, School of International Liberal Studies Naomi Iwazawa Naomi Iwazawa works as a representative for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3614,"featured_media":16185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[214,245],"class_list":["post-16183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-attention-en","tag-people-en","tag-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17535,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16183\/revisions\/17535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}