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2011 J-LEAP REPORTFEBRUARY, 2012: BREEZE ISSUE #52
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OF JAPANESEYUI ITO (WADDELL LANGUAGE ACADEMY, NC)

My name is Yui Ito. I am a teaching assistant at E.E.
Waddell Language Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I think North Carolina is an unfamiliar destination for mostJapanese people. Before I came here, my impression ofNorth Carolina was a place with many hurricanes. But now
my impression has changed, North Carolina has very
beautiful nature and the people are charming. Charlotte isan important city for banking. Charlotte is called “TheBank of America City”, because Bank of America is
headquartered here. There is even a Bank of America
stadium!
Let me introduce my school.
Waddell Language Academy offers a unique educational experience. Have you ever heard of “languageimmersion”? I didn’t know much about it before I came.
The school is a public K-8 magnet school in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School (CMS) District that offers
students the unique opportunity to become fluent and literate in a second language. Waddell Language
Academy offers second language immersion instruction in Chinese, German, French, and Japanese. From
the first days in Kindergarten, students are immersed in a new language. This produces students who areproficient in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in a second language. Students are taught in thesecond language for all or part of the instructional day.
At the middle school level, students continue to study in their immersion language and can begin an
accelerated course of study in a third language. There are also options for students so that they canchoose from a wide range of traditional elective courses as well as those that emphasize different
languages and cultures.
I have a very good opportunity to learn about immersion programs as well as gain valuable skills as aJapanese language teacher. The classroom next to us is French immersion class and the one across fromPrivacy - Terms
us is a German immersion class. The teachers are from other countries so it is also very nice to work with

them. I’m learning lots of things from the students and teachers every day.
I am a teaching assistant for 4th, 5th, and 8th graders. Earlier this semester, I surveyed the students tolearn about their motivation and their interests in Japan and Japanese culture. The survey showed thatmy students want to know more about Tokyo so I chose Tokyo as a topic for this month. I hope I canmotivate my students to learn Japanese and improve their Japanese language skills.

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2011 J-LEAP Report: Naoko Nogamoto2011 J-LEAP Report: Yui Ito2011 JET-MIP Essay: Aki'a Hodges

2011 JET-MIP Essay: Cayra DeGiulio

2011 JET-MIP Essay: Christopher Mahmood

2011 JET-MIP Essay: Jackson Morawski

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