Author(s): TACHIKAWA, K., INAGAKI, Y., Institution: RYUTSU KEIZAI UNIVERSITY, Country: JAPAN, Abstract-ID: 542

Introduction
“Easy Japanese” has been used as an effective way to provide information to foreign residents during disasters since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Recently it has also been used in a wide range of areas such as nursing care, medical care and disaster prevention information from the government. Despite this there is no study on “Easy Japanese” in lifesaving activities. Furthermore, linguistic research shows that “Easy Japanese” is useful not only for foreigners but also for native speakers with low Japanese language proficiency. The ways of communication in lifesaving are various. Therefore, learning “Easy Japanese” will be essential for lifesavers as a practical skill.
Methods
First, we checked 27 student lifesavers’ (Male 19, female 8) knowledge of “Easy Japanese” and asked them what is important to communicate to people with low Japanese proficiency. Next, we got students to rewrite a beach announcement (i.e. “No swimming due to lightning”) to make it easier to understand. After that we gave a lecture to students to increase their linguistic knowledge of “Easy Japanese” and got them to rewrite another beach announcement (“No swimming due to fog”). Finally, students described how they should use “Easy Japanese” in lifesaving situations.
Results
The 90% of the students did not know the fine details of “Easy Japanese”. As to the importance of communication with those who are not able to understand Japanese, students mentioned that they would deal with them kindly and friendly. After the lecture of “Easy Japanese”, students got the linguistic skills as follows, 1) To change formal expressions to simpler one’s, 2) To emphasize the important parts of the announcement and repeat them, 3) To shorten a long sentence in order to make it simple and clear. However, they couldn’t rewrite everyday Japanese phrases that are difficult for foreigners into “Easy Japanese”. After this activity, for making effective use of “Easy Japanese”, they referred that lifesaving skills based on having consideration for people are absolutely indispensable.
Conclusion
In this study, it turned out that student lifesavers’ ability to use “Easy Japanese” in lifesaving had improved dramatically after the lecture. According to their reactions to a series of practice, interestingly we knew that they realized the significance of their caring attitude to communicate as well as language skills in lifesaving. As a result, we need to give student lifesavers further linguistic instruction for “Easy Japanese” systematically. In addition, we should study more about the practical relationship between language and communication skills of student lifesavers.
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant number JP21K11527.