History
The Ohanashkai Club was born in April 2001,
in
Anchorage,
Alaska.
It stemmed from a request to the President of
the
Japanese Society of Alaska to open up a platform for speaking opportunities in
Japanese. The next month we held out first meeting.Since then, we've met almost regularly every third Saturday of the month. However, since 2003 we decided to take a break during the summer months. Originally, we started as a breakfast club, and wound up having "asagohan" in several restaurants. When the weather was pleasant, we'd have our meetings outdoors, in places like the Botanical Garden, or the Valley of the Moon park. Subsequently, we were invited to the UAA campus, and since then we have had many University students participating in our sessions.
Goals
Our main goal is to
improve the members' ability to converse in Japanese
in a relaxed and non-threatening atmosphere. During the meetings, the members
are encouraged to share experiences in an
autonomous and spontaneous way, without the fear of being evaluated. The nice
part--we don't dole out grades. For
obvious reasons, participants are asked to refrain from the use of
English and encouraged to speak in Japanese as much as possible.
Most meetings are
amorphous, allowing members to meet in small groups or with partners and
continue on with a topic of their choosing.
We invite everyone to share in. Membership into the Ohanashkai Club is free and open to anyone in the community.