Multilingual E-Tra Note system launched in Japan

UTSUNOMIYA - The E-Tra Note, a multilingual online school memo system, is being touted as simple to use and accurate.

Hideki Wakabayashi, 59, the developer of the E-Tra Note, said I wish to turn special into part of the ordinary. I hope teachers will face non-Japanese children and their households without using the language barrier as an excuse. I want to eliminate language barriers through information technology. The system allows teachers to choose from a library of more than 600 fixed phrases and other text elements, combine them and send them out, so the parents and other guardians of students can receive messages in nine languages, including English and Chinese.

The product can be used regardless of the time and location, unlike interpreting apps. Wakabayashi said that the system will help reduce teachers' workloads by linking students' guardians with their schools.

After graduating from university, Wakabayashi became an English teacher at a junior high school in his native Tochigi Prefecture. In his 11th year, a half year of studying Spanish became a turning point in his career, after which he was assigned to take charge of non-Japanese students.

On one occasion, Wakabayashi visited the home of a Brazilian boy who used to be noisy during school hours. He talked to the boy's mother in broken Portuguese with a dictionary in hand, and the boy was calmer in class from the following day.

The experience gave Wakabayashi a sense of confidence that he had won their trust. It brought home how important it was to cooperate with the parents and other guardians.

At the time, there were increasing numbers of non-Japanese citizens in town, giving him a firsthand sense that a big wave was coming. It also lit a fire within him.

Wakabayashi became involved in a research project on the education of non-Japanese children and changed jobs when he was 47 to serve as an associate professor at Utsunomiya University.

He said that he thought that the job change would allow me to pursue what I wanted to do.

I had no hesitation about it. In the year 2019, the E-Tra Note system earned Wakabayashi the top prize in the Multilingual Speech Translation Contest.