Trudi Wigg

Trudi’s love for Japanese began at Tauranga Girls High School where she studied Japanese from Year 9 to Year 12. Trudi received a scholarship to study in Japan at the Osaka Kunei Jougakuin Kotougakkou (Osaka School for Girls) in 1998, her last year of high school.  Trudi lived with a host family during this time and it was then that she became communicatively fluent in Japanese and developed a ‘real’ passion for the Japanese Culture. She also learnt to cook authentic Japanese food in her host mother’s kitchen! Trudi said that the experience was definitely worth it despite being challenging at times.

Trudi returned to New Zealand in January 1999 and began a Bachelor of Arts with a Japanese Major in February of that year at Massey University (Palmerston North). She completed this qualification at the end of 2001.

After completing her BA, Trudi applied for the 2002 intake on the JET programme.  She was successful in her application and departed for Japan in August 2002. Before leaving New Zealand, Trudi worked at a primary school as a teacher aide and also taught Japanese, German and Spanish. Trudi spent her 1 year on the JET programme in Nara Prefecture, Haibara Town where she taught English at a local senior high school. She also did work for the UN and her prefecture. During the year Trudi had full immersion in Japanese life independently and believes it is because of this independence that her Japanese language skills became day-to-day fluent. Trudi definitely recommends the JET programme and would do it again.

In August 2003 Trudi arrived back in New Zealand and applied for Teachers College. She was accepted into Teachers College and began her year as a student teacher in 2004. She had teaching placements at Waitakere College and Westlake Girls High School. She graduated in May 2005 as a Japanese and ESOL teacher.

Before completing her teacher training in September 2004, Trudi was offered a job teaching Japanese at Bayfield High School in Dunedin. Trudi has been at Bayfield since the beginning of 2005 and has taught a variety of subjects including Japanese, German, Tourism and a video conference course in Japanese. Since 2005 Trudi has been the teacher in charge of Japanese, a form teacher and a netball coach.

During Trudi’s time as a teacher she has been on a number of Japan related trips. In 2006, Trudi was one of two teachers invited to Fukushima Prefecture to do an educators tour with a focus on internationalisation between Fukushima youth and NZ youth for 2 weeks. In 2008 Trudi was part of a contingent of New Zealand and Australian teachers who took part in a 3 week course at the Japan Foundation in Saitama, Japan.  This course focussed on Japanese fluency, culture, methods for teaching Japanese and using resources such as 'Erin ga chousen: nihongo dekimasu'.  In 2009 Trudi was once again part of a contingent of New Zealand and Australian teachers who took part in a 4 day programme at the Japan Foundation in Sydney, Australia which  focussed on teaching Japanese - shared resources and techniques, as well as cultural lessons and resource based lessons using the Japan Foundation of Sydney's valuable website.

In the future Trudi intends to continue teaching Japanese in New Zealand but would like to return to visit Japan at least once every 18 months to 2 years.