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2026-09-28

In Fukuoka, the international students teach

福岡では、留学生が教える側になる

In Fukuoka, the international students are the ones teaching.

The city's international foundation runs language classes where the teachers are international students, teaching their own language and their own culture. This year there are ten courses across six languages: Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Nepali and Mongolian, with three levels each in Korean and Chinese.

Look at that from the student's side. You come to Japan to study, and the city asks you to teach. The language you grew up with, the one that makes daily life here harder, is the reason people in Fukuoka sign up and listen to you for an hour.

That flips something. You are not only the person who needs help with Japanese. You are also the person in the room who knows something nobody else knows.

If you are studying Japanese right now and it feels like everything only goes one way, it does not. What you brought with you is wanted here too.

We do the same swap at our meetup here in Fukuoka, and you do not have to sign up for a course to get it. Someone teaches a phrase in Japanese, someone answers back in Korean or Spanish or French, and everyone leaves with a few words they did not have that morning.

What makes ours different is that the exchange happens while we are doing something else. Board games on a Saturday afternoon. Walking around the city. Yoga. Going to a festival or an event together. You end up practising for hours without once feeling like you are in a lesson, because you are busy with the thing in front of you.

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