I challenged the first Japanese Language Teacher Exam for becoming a nationally certified registered Japanese teacher

Starting this year, Japanese language teachers are becoming a national qualification, and the first "Japanese Language Teacher Exam" for that purpose was held on November 17. It was one of my personal hot topics this year, so regardless of whether I would pass, I decided to throw my current ability at it.

I have not told that many people, but I volunteer at a Japanese language class in my local area. Even becoming this kind of volunteer requires a three-month training course in my city, and after completing it, you can finally join the classroom as a volunteer.

I joined that course just after New Year's two years ago. I took it with the mindset that I could quit if it was too hard, but I somehow completed the three-month training. Since the following May, I have been supporting Japanese language learning in the classroom once a week.

Whether lucky or unlucky, the class I joined was a new course starting that year, so even the classroom operation was handled through trial and error. It was an experience that is not easy to get. A year passed, and now the end of the second year is coming into view.

Even though I have become more used to it, I am still a newcomer and there is still plenty of trial and error. Still, compared with two years ago, I have gained quite a bit of experience and knowledge.

This year I heard that Japanese language teachers would become a national qualification. I had not been thinking at all about getting a national qualification or becoming a Japanese language teacher, but since it was the first exam, I thought it would be worth doing even just as a commemorative attempt, so I applied.

There are exam exemptions for people who are already professional Japanese language teachers or who have studied in education departments or vocational schools. Of course I had no such exemptions, so I took both the basic exam and the applied exam.

The exam consisted of the following three parts:

• Basic exam (120 minutes)
• Applied exam I: listening comprehension (50 minutes)
• Applied exam II (100 minutes)

It started at 10:00 and ended at 16:30, making it an extremely long exam. The basic exam in particular had 100 questions, which felt overwhelming. I do not know how it will be from next year onward, but this year it was a four-choice mark sheet exam, and pencils or mechanical pencils were required.

The question booklet was also collected, so there was no souvenir to take home. The results will be announced on December 20.

I think it will be quite difficult to still be active in my current designer and engineer work 10 years from now. As one possible career beyond that, one of the things I want to try through trial and error over the next 10 years is becoming a Japanese language teacher.

If I were a Japanese language teacher for designers and engineers, I could differentiate myself, and I think my extensive experience speaking and writing in Japanese could also be an advantage. I do not know what will happen, but I plan to work on it with a long-term view.