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BREEZE #88

JANUARY, 2015: BREEZE ISSUE #87
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OF
JAPANESE2014 J-LEAP REPORTBY MIHO KOBAYASHI
Verdugo Woodlands Elementary SchoolGlendale, CA
Hello, my name is Miho Kobayashi and I am
working as an Assistant Teacher at Verdugo
Woodlands Elementary School in Glendale,
California.
This is a public school with a Japanese dual
immersion program called The Foreign
Language Academy of Glendale (FLAG) –Japanese. The school also has traditional
English-only classes just like other public
elementary schools. The program was started
in 2010, so this is the sixth year of its
existence. There are currently 20 – 24students per class from kindergarten throughfifth grade and for Japanese, there are twoclasses each for first, second, and third grade,along with one class each for the other grades.
Usually there are two teachers per grade level;
one for English and one for Japanese instruction. The students who attend this program study
several subjects every day such as Math, Science, and Social Studies in both English andJapanese. They study in each of the languages for half of the day.

Privacy - TermsSome of the students attend the school with a special permit while others move into the district
just for this program. This shows that the program is popular and valuable for parents who are
passionate in having their children learn Japanese. Also, it can be seen that the parents havehigh expectations in our program for their child to learn Japanese. As proof of the success of
our program, another elementary school in the district has also started their own immersion
program this school year.
Although the students at our school have a diverse background with varying levels of Japanese
language ability, teachers and students speak only in Japanese during the Japanese side oflessons. So we speak nearly 100% of the time using Japanese. Some students have parents
who have a Japanese background and can fluently speak and use Japanese like a native
speaker because they use it at home on daily basis and also go to Japanese supplementary
school on weekends. On the other hand, some students don’t have any Japanese backgroundat all, and have been learning it since they entered the school. However, the more the students
can understand what the teacher says and try, little by little, to speak Japanese to teachers andtheir friends, the more they seem to enjoy learning Japanese. It is a pleasure for me to work at
a place that has an immersion program and to see how the children become bilingual.
Since working at the school, I have been fortunate enough to be given many opportunities as
an assistant teacher, such as supporting the lead teacher, leading some lessons, andsuggesting ideas about activities and assignments for class. However, the main part of my role
is to model Japanese speaking and writing Kana including Hiragana and Katakana as a nativeJapanese speaker. My lead teacher, Shiomi-sensei usually asks questions to the students as
her morning routine and she routinely asks me to model the responses to her questions andalso demonstrate how to communicate in Japanese in front of the students.
One of the great opportunities I’ve had is to read aloud once a week during our library time. I
choose picture books to read to the students. I believe it is a good opportunity for the students
to hear Japanese stories even if they don’t understand the whole story. When I read a book, I
try to read it so that everyone could enjoy it, regardless of their language level. I read the lines
like the characters speak, point to the pictures and ask questions about the words that thestudents might know, have them guess what will happen next, and ask questions about thestory once I am done reading. Also, I explain words that students might not know. So, I hope
they enjoy the story and learn some new words. Now, the lead teacher and I are planning to
expand the number of books in our library because the students are interested in reading
Japanese picture books themselves.
The most challenging thing to me was teaching Japanese Kana (alphabet) to the First graders.
Luckily, I had the opportunity to make the lesson plans and teach the lesson myself. When I wasplanning the lessons, I knew that I needed to take small steps in teaching oral, listening,reading, and writing of the Kana for the students so that they could remember and use itcorrectly. Those are the big differences between teaching Japanese to native Japanese
students at an elementary school in Japan and to non-native Japanese speakers at a school inthe U.S. As a part of learning Kana, students have to practice writing it as homework every

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week and I correct their assignments. I try to show the students how to write Kana correctly. I
worry that if I correct them too much, I might receive complaints from the parents. Despite this,I have received positive feedback from the parents who appreciate my attention to detail and I
realized that showing proper technique to write Kana is a strength of native Japanese speakers
who work as assistant teacher on this program.
Additionally, I also create teaching materials such as worksheets for the lessons, and bulletins
for the classroom. I sometimes create them myself but I mostly talk with the lead teacher tocollaborate our ideas in creating better materials. I learned that we should put pictures on theteaching materials to help the students understand effectively. We are now working on Kanji
worksheets and flash cards and I hope they will be useful even after I leave the school.
In the future, I would like to find more opportunities to teach students outside of our Japanese
program and plan events and activities to spread Japanese culture to the rest of the community
here in Southern California. It would be a pleasure to see more people gain a fond interest inthe Japanese culture.

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Breeze #88

Japanese Langauge Education Update 152015 Kakehashi Report2014 J-LEAP Report: Miho Kobayashi

2014 JET-MIP Report: Sadezia Pitt-Ulcena

2014 JET-MIP Report: Jalyn Radziminski-Smith

2015 AJALT Workshop

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