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2018 J-LEAP REPORT: RYO NAKAYAMAJANUARY, 2019: BREEZE ISSUE #135
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OFJAPANESE
2018 J-LEAP REPORTBY RYO NAKAYAMAHarding High School
Saint Paul, MN
Hello! Bonjour! Hola! Coda! Boozhoo! Nyob zoo!
and Konnichiwa!!!
I’m Ryo Nakayama and I teach Japanese at
Harding Senior High School in Minnesota as a
J-LEAP assistant teacher. I said “I teachJapanese” but it is better to say “We teachJapanese.” Hanna Brandt is the lead teacher(LT) who is one of the most amazing people
I’ve met. I can’t tell you how old she is, but I
am going to introduce more about her later.
I’ll want to share my passion for J-LEAP andwould be happy if you read until the end so
you get to know more about J-LEAP.
Introduction for Assistant Teacher (AT)I’m originally from Saitama, which is ranked always in the lower attractiveness ranking
among Japanese prefectures, but I’m proud of Saitama. However, when I introduce myself forthe first time, I often say “I live near Tokyo”. As soon as I graduated from university, I joined
J-LEAP and I came to the U.S. with a passion to do become a great teacher. I’m trying toactively engage with the students and learn how they communicate in order to know whatstudents want to learn and how they want to learn. When I interact with the students, otherteachers may mistake me as one of them. I think it is due to my short height and baby face.
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This is the first time I’ve been to the U.S. as well as Minnesota. I love my family and friends
in Japan and I thought I would definitely be homesick but everything I see is refreshing. For
example, culture, food, places, American high school, students and so on. As a matter of fact,
I’m very much enjoying the American lifestyle and haven’t become homesick yet.
Introduction for Lead Teacher (LT)I would love to introduce my Lead Teacher Hanna Brandt. She has been teaching in Saint Paulfor twelve years now. She has taught at both the middle and high school levels and has lived inJapan for three years. While teaching Japanese at Harding, she is also the dean of Mori noIke, the Japanese language and culture immersion program at Concordia Language Villages.
She has an awesome family with three crazy children and a wonderful husband. She is very
busy, but works hard at everything she does. Perhaps she has much more energy than me. I
have a lot of respect for her and learned a lot from her and I’m so happy to work with her!
Harding Senior High School
Located on the east side of Saint Paul, the capital city of Minnesota, it is one of the largest
high schools in the city. There are about two thousand students and we have the International
Baccalaureate (IB) program with over three hundred students taking at least one IB test eachyear. There are thirty five home languages (the languages kids students speak at home) andone third of Harding students are English language learners (not native speakers of English).
Japanese program at Harding Senior High School
Remember the greetings that I wrote at the beginning of this article? Those are greetings
written in languages offered at Harding High School. We have six language programs including
French, Spanish, Ojibwe, Lakota, Hmong and Japanese. The above greetings are written inthis order. The Japanese program is the second largest program. There are about two hundred
andfiftystudents

andthreeteachers

includingme.

Wehavenineclasses

fromJapanese1(beginner) to Japanese4,5(advance/IB).
Events in Japanese classes
On health sports day, we had a sports festival,but

eventhough

Japanese3,4,5

students

couldn’t participate due to their schedule, wetriedtodoa

sport

festival

bymixing

Japanese1 and 2 students in the same period.
We

also

recruitedvolunteers

among

thestudents and organized a sports commissioner
called “Taiiku-iin.” We wanted everyone tocooperate with each other even if they are in adifferent grade. We divided them into threeteams of red, white and blue and did tug ofwar, three-legged race, bean bag toss and typhoon eye relay. After all the activities, I sentout
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a questionnaire asking questions about the event. Many students answered, saying they reallyenjoyed the activities and were able to appreciate a Japanese sports festival. Next year, wewant to improve our sports festival based on the survey we conducted after this year ’s event!
From early to mid-December, we started the New Year “Oshogatsu” lesson in all classes. ForJapanese1, this is the first time to learn about Japanese New Year. They conducted a project tochoose and research something related to “Oshogatsu” in groups of 2 to 3 students and thenpresented their findings. I was surprised that the students had such creative ideas and worked sohard. Some students even asked me if they could do a lion dance “Shishimai” outside because thespace is too small to dance in the classroom! It is very cold in December so we couldn’t do it outside,
so I have to look for a big stage, where they can dance with all their strength.
I’m very grateful to J-LEAP for giving me such an amazing opportunity. I would like to keep
trying new things and learning how to teach Japanese effectively. “Don’t be satisfied with justhard work.” This phrase is one of the very memorable quotes from a much respected professor
at my university. I took questionnaires for every one of our events and reflect on the event
based on the questionnaires. I’m still a beginner teacher, but I’ll learn more and more andbecome more effective co-teaching with Hanna.
Then I’ll become a wonderful teacher! I promise you!
Thank you! Merci! Gracias! Chi-miigwech! Philamayaye! Ua tsaug! Arigatogozaimashita!!!

Your Japan #8 - DecemberYour Japan #7 - NovemberYour Japan #6 - OctoberYour Japan #5 - SeptemberYour Japan #4 - AugustYour Japan #3 - July

Your Japan #2 - JuneYour Japan #1 - May

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