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2018 J-LEAP REPORTMARCH, 2019: BREEZE ISSUE #137
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OF
JAPANESE2018 J-LEAP REPORTBY ERI SAIMYOThe Obama Academy of International Studies
Pittsburgh, PA“Pittsburgh! Yay! … Wait, where is that?”
This was my first reaction when I found out
about the place where I would be starting thenext chapter of my life.
Hello! My name is Eri Saimyo. I used to work
as an English teacher at a public school inJapan. As much as I enjoyed my career as ateacher in Japan, I also had been wishing toexperience more outside of Japan. Thanks tothe J-LEAP, I am now in Pittsburgh andhaving

everydayfullofinspiration

anddiscovery.
Today I would like to talk about Pittsburgh,where I live, the Obama Academy, where I work, what I do as an assistant teacher, mymission in Pittsburgh, and J-LEAP.
My heart Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is located in western part of Pennsylvania. It used to have a flourishing steel
industry and you can still see the traces of the past in some places in the city. I remember I
was so surprised to see how beautiful the city was with lots of nature and historical buildings
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when I first came here. My host mother, however, told me how different the city looked now

from fifty years ago. She told me air and water pollution used to be very serious in Pittsburgh
because of the industry. But a lot of efforts have been made and now it is ranked in the second
place to live after Honolulu, Hawaii on the survey “The places where Americans want to settle
in the US”. It is also known as a college town. There are a lot of students from all over theworld and you can find various exotic restaurants, including Japanese restaurants! If you haveany chances to come closer to the East coast, please stop by Pittsburgh. I am sure you will love
this beautiful city.
Obama Academy of International Studies
Now I would like to talk about our school and Japanese class. I am working at Obama Academyof International Studies as an assistant Japanese teacher. Obama Academy is an inner-citymagnet school that offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. We don’t use
textbooks in our Japanese class. Neither working at an IB school nor teaching without
textbooks is something I have ever experienced, so it has been very interesting and there are a
lot to learn. The ethnic majority of our school is African American (70% of their totalcomposition). At first I felt overwhelmed by the energy students had, and I still have that kindof feeling, but I also realized there are similarities to the students I use to teach in Japan.
They both like talking about boys and girls, classes are not the best part of their day, and they
love music.
There are currently 107 students from 6 to 8 grade learning Japanese in our school. And whatmakes our Japanese class unique is that most of them didn’t choose to take Japanese. The
students who didn’t take any languages in elementary school are automatically assigned toJapanese class. Most of them have no idea where Japan is, and of course, it is so hard for themto tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese.
Motivating them to learn Japanese is not only the first but also the most important mission for
us teachers, since it was not their choice to be in our classroom. How can we make our classes
interesting and motivating? As I mentioned above, we don’t use textbooks in our class. Theteachers create a curriculum and decide what to teach. My lead teacher, Nathan Bynum-sensei,
is one of the most creative teachers I have ever met. He always inspires me with new ideas,and tries to listen to my ideas when we plan the lesson together. Working with him has helped
me to develop myself as a teacher. I have been learning a lot, for example, not all thetechniques I used to use in my classroom in Japan can be applied to the classroom we now
teach. We need different approaches when we teach different students, especially whenstudents have different cultural backgrounds. It is hard for me to change the way I am used to,but Bynum-sensei is helping me and I would love to do anything benefits our students. Also
Bynum-sensei is one of the most popular teachers in our school. A lot of students stop by ourclassroom just to say “hi” to him. Students love him and I can tell he does, too. I think thebiggest reason why students love him is that they know Bynum-sensei cares about them. IPrivacy - Terms

think building a good relationship with students is very important because it can be directly
related to classroom management. I hope I can learn how to build those good relationships
with students from the way Bynum-sensei does.
WhatI

doas

anassistantteacherI think my job in the classroom is
to give students as many positive
Japanese experiences as possible.
I would like to show students
how different Japan is, and at
the same time, how similar it canbe even though it’s so far away.
In the classroom I am mainly incharge of beginning the class,doing

aisatsu

previousandlessons.

Ireviewing
alsowalkaround the classroom and workwith the students who need help.
My mission in Pittsburgh
My personal mission for these two years is to participate in more activities outside of theclassroom. I realized a lot of people don’t know we offer Japanese classes at school. Whenever I
tell someone I am working as an assistant Japanese teacher at Obama, they say “I had no idea
they were offering Japanese there!” I would like to increase Japanese recognition here inPittsburgh. I want more people to know how interesting Japanese culture is and that Japan is
not only about sushi and teppanyaki.
I made friends through my host mother and we are planning to do “Nagashi-somen” in theannual neighborhood summer festival. I would like to build more of those connections inPittsburgh.

Japanisfarawaygeographically,

butIwantto

make

it

much

closerpsychologically by building connections among people.
What is special about J-LEAP
At last but not the least, I would like to talk about J-LEAP. I feel so lucky that I am here as aJ-LEAP assistant teacher. We have a solid support base in both Japan and the U.S. We havedetailed assistance from reliable team in Japan, and support from mentor teachers who careabout us—like a mother in the U.S. We also have high-quality trainings to learn how toimprove our teaching skills, which give us confidence in teaching. J-LEAP supports us just likea family. Every day being here through J-LEAP is so fulfilling and I can’t believe 6 months

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have already passed. Now I only have a year and a half left. I will try to make most of my stayhere in Pittsburgh to benefit the Japanese community in Pittsburgh to further build thefriendly relationship between Japan and America.
Thank you, Gracias, Merci, Danke and Arigato for reading through!
Yinz are always welcome in Pittsburgh!

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