For several years from 1980 the Meguro UNESCO Association, at the request of the Japan Foundation, invited participants of their “Short-term Study Classes for Overseas Teachers of Japanese Language” to hold an exchange program called “Welcome to Japan; words, tastes and games,” introducing Japanese culture. For the benefits of these overseas participants a farewell party was held at the Japan Foundation in August 1984. Out of a chat with the members of the Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language came an idea of Meguro UNESCO being engaged in the activities of teaching Japanese. It preceded the first wave of the “Japanese boom” and there were hardly any activities of the sort by other UNESCO organizations at that time.

After about half a year preparation the “Introductory Course for Study of Teaching Japanese” as a part of the “UNESCO Course for Exchange of International Cultures and Understanding” opened in May 1985, thanks to the cooperation of then Prof. Tomio Kubota of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and other teachers belonging to the Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language as well as the Meguro Board of Education.

In the course description it was written that “the Meguro UNESCO Association has set up the study courses related to the Japanese language as well as international understanding and cooperation in order to train experts of teaching Japanese as well as volunteers, who would contribute to UNESCO activities. The purposes were stated as follows:

(1) To improve endowments of teachers of Japanese by letting them understand the UNESCO spirit and have a broad international viewpoint,

(2) To provide the members of Meguro UNESCO Association with opportunities to learn the basic knowledge of teaching Japanese, which would be helpful for them in carrying on their UNESCO activities,

(3) To provide the participants with opportunities to learn their mother tongue, Japanese, objectively.

The course was not intended just to offer a course for training teachers of Japanese. Like all other Meguro UNESCO activities it was intended to be a course for understanding UNESCO activities as a part of movement for peace based on the UNESCO spirit. For that reason a “5 minute speech about UNESCO” was included in every class. In the course of ten years 235 classes totaling 470 hours were held. When the course started, however, we did not foresee that it would later develop into the “Meguro UNESCO Japanese Classes” as they are today.