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FREEIMAGES.COM
Lessons range from abacus skills to prime numbers to constructing cubes from paper.
KYOTO, Japan >> A group of students led by Kyoto University of Education is offering math-teaching videos on YouTube — in English, Chinese and Korean — for elementary school students with the aim of offering easy-to-understand tips to a growing number of children in Japan with foreign citizenship.
There are 40 people working on the project, including members of the university’s seminar led by professor Yasufumi Kuroda, and students at the department of mathematics. Kuroda also serves as the head of an organization to study education methods for children who speak languages other than Japanese, comprising mainly the university’s faculty members.
Under the project, students first make videos in Japanese and translate them into English, Chinese and Korean, with more languages planned for the future. Four international students studying at Japanese universities, such as Ritsumeikan University, also take part in the project, offering help in the translation process.
“I hope this helps boost children’s understanding, and they will study actively to help achieve their dreams,” said 23-year-old South Korean student Kim Seung Hwa.
The length of the videos ranges from about one to six minutes. About 200 videos in four languages, including Japanese, have been uploaded. Topics include two-digit addition, abacus calculations and drawings that show how to construct cubes and similar shapes by folding paper.
For example, a video featuring a calculation algorithm for second-graders explains two-digit addition step by step in multiple languages — first add up the numbers in the 1s place, then carry the number that results in the 10s place of the calculation (if there is one) and then add up everything in the 10s place.
The students plan to translate the materials into other languages such as Portuguese and Filipino. In two years they aim to offer about 900 videos in six languages that cover math topics for all elementary school grades.
“We’ve created exercises from scratch and tried to make it visually easy to understand them,” said Mayu Matsuzaki, a 20-year-old junior at Kyoto University of Education.
Kuroda said, “We want not only children from abroad, but also children who learn at hospitals to make good use of the videos.”
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