I'm Peter Hoang. I'm a teacher living in Japan.
I teach at a school where most students are Japanese, but over the past few years, something has been changing. More and more students are arriving from Vietnam, China, Nepal, the Philippines, and other countries — families trying to build a new life in Japan. They sit in classrooms where instruction happens in Japanese, sometimes English, and they understand very little of either.
I watch them struggle, and I recognize something familiar.
A story I already know
Forty years ago, my parents were refugees. They fled Vietnam with nothing and resettled in Australia — a country where they didn't speak the language, didn't understand the culture, and had no one to explain what was happening around them.
My mother sat in government offices not understanding the documents she was signing. My father took whatever work he could find, nodding along to instructions he couldn't follow. They still built a life — through stubbornness, sacrifice, and the kindness of strangers who took the time to help.
I grew up watching the cost of living in a language that isn't yours. The confusion. The isolation. The quiet shame of not understanding something that everyone else seems to get.
Now I see the same thing in my classroom.
A Vietnamese student staring at a Japanese textbook, lost. A Chinese student who is smart and capable but falling behind because the lesson moves faster than their language ability allows.
These kids remind me of my parents. They remind me of the kid I might have been if my family had landed somewhere different.
The moment that started everything
There wasn't one dramatic moment. It was more like a hundred small ones.
A kid zoning out because he'd lost track of the lesson twenty minutes ago and had no way to catch up. A girl who aced every math problem but couldn't read the question because it was in Japanese.
I kept thinking: why isn't there something simple that just sits on their screen and helps them understand what's in front of them?
Not a separate app. Not a new tab. Not something that takes them away from the lesson. Something that floats right there, on top of whatever they're working on, giving them translation, a dictionary, a place to take notes — without anyone noticing, without disrupting the class.
I couldn't find it. So I started building it.
What Layers actually is
Layers is a small floating toolbar. For students, it's a free Chrome extension that sits on top of any webpage and gives them real-time translation, a dictionary, a scratch pad, drawing tools, a timer, and focus mode — all without opening a single new tab.
For teachers, it's a Windows app that floats over their slides, videos, apps — giving them timers, annotation, a student picker, a noise meter, live translation, and the ability to remotely control what students can access on their devices.
The two work together. Teacher connects, students join with a code, and from that moment the teacher has more control over their classrooms. They can block distracting websites, lock down the internet entirely, or send a link to every connected device — all from a floating toolbar.
The student extension is free, and it always will be. Because the students who need it most are the ones whose families can least afford to pay for it.
Why this is personal
I didn't build Layers to start a company. I built it because I was tired of watching kids fall through the cracks for a problem that technology should have solved already.
I wanted to give them a lifeline. Something quiet, always there, that lets them keep up without having to raise their hand and say "I don't understand".
That's it. That's the whole reason Layers exists.
If you teach students who don't speak the language of instruction — or if you know someone who does — I'd love for you to try Layers. The student Chrome extension is completely free. The teacher app has a 14-day free trial.
And if you've made it this far, thank you for reading. It means a lot.
— Peter Hoang, from a classroom in Japan