Recently, the number of foreign children in Japan has increased and so has the length of their stay has tended to be longer. Consequently, the psychological problems related to their educational issues have become more serious. In this study, we focused on the Japanese volunteer teachers who support foreign students at the JSL (Japanese as a Second Language) classroom in a public junior high school in western Japan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 Japanese volunteer teachers (2 males and 5 females). The Japanese volunteer teachers focused that most foreign students suffered from some psychological instability stemming from their cross-cultural experiences. They offered foreign students language education, psychological cares, comfortable atmosphere and so on. Moreover, Japanese volunteer teachers made good relationships with school teachers through their supports. However, they were reluctant to give foreign students direct psychological cares because of their lack of knowledge and skills in psychological counseling and other obstacles in the school community. We concluded that there were various elements to support foreign students in the JSL classroom and Japanese volunteer teachers took important roles as psycho-sociological resource for them. In order to support foreign students more effectively, a licensed psychologist must be involved as a coordinator for constructing systematic psycho-sociological support in a Japanese school.

The author has been conducting a group-based social re-entry program in a social rehabilitation facility for males since 2004 in order to help those unable to lead an independent life to return to their local communities. This study aims to consider the effect of the program on its participants by examining their social skills and changes in their self cognition. The average rate of participation throughout the 4 terms was 13%, indicating the overall negative atmosphere. Six participants were selected for the study, and an analysis was conducted on their scores in a social skills scale known as Kiss-18 and on their narratives in interviews made at the end of the program. According to the social skills scale, the participants did not have poor social skills. Further, interviews showed that although they initially found it difficult to adjust to the program, they gradually formed their positive attitudes and looked forward to the program sessions. The participants studied showed an overall rise in their social skills level through the social skills scale scores, their interviews, and the author’s observation. In conclusion, the program had a certain positive effect on the social skills level of the participants. It enabled them to be aware of positive changes in their way of thinking and in their attitude toward the interpersonal relationship. It also caused them some behavioral changes. However, it is not clear that the changes are long lasting.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the change of Chinese trainees motivation in learning Japanese as a second language and the recognition of training environment. Based on the change of motivation, semi-structured interview techniques were employed to 6 Chinese on-the-job trainees who were trained in an IT company in Japan, and the qualitative result analysis shows that increasing their motivation is related with their positive cognition and decreasing it is with negative one to their training environment. Its factors of their changing motivation are, for example, the existence of clear goal in learning, the existence of significant others in training environment, the opportunity of communication in Japanese, and so on. These findings show that it is necessary to work on both of trainees themselves and their training environment to construct the supportive environment for their learning Japanese which promotes their empowerment.

Since 2004, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has been implementing the placement of “Counselors for Children and Parents” in elementary schools as government-commissioned research project to prefectures. This report is a practical case study by the authors who have worked as the Counselor in the project. Their activities in the past two years as the Counselor are able to be divided into six phases: “preparation”, “new entry”, “struggle”, “opening the counseling room”, “utilizing the counseling room”, and “establishment”. During the activities, three major features have been also determined. First of all, with the needs assessments of pupils, managements, and teachers, the activities of the Counselors had been developed to meet their changing needs. Secondly, the Counselors had played a role of partners for teachers to understand their pupils, as well as aid providers for pupils when they need assistance. Finally, as the third feature, the Counselors had collaborated with the school counselor and formed a “counselor group”. One factor that led their activity to have these features is that the school had groundwork for accepting new projects proactively with its small size and the active interaction culture the school had. Another factor is that the Counselors have worked on needs assessment and shared the information each other. Additionally, presence of the school counselor who have served as mediator between the teachers and the Counselors is one of the factors as well. Sharing information with teachers, however, left some issues because of the limited time of the activities.