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2013 J-LEAP REPORTJANUARY, 2014: BREEZE ISSUE #75
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OF JAPANESE

2013 J-LEAP REPORTBY ATSUYA YOSHIDA
Taylor Allderdice High School
Pittsburgh, PA
Hello. My name is Atsuya Yoshida from Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. I am a Japanese Language Assistant
Teacher working with my lead teacher, Mrs. Valdivia, atTaylor Allderdice High school in Pittsburgh. I am reallyenjoying life in the United States and experiencing a lot ofnew things. In this report, I will cover the four topicsbelow including my school, co-teaching, culture andlanguage, and my life in the United States.
My school
Taylor Allderdice High School (AHS) has approximately 1,300 students with diverse ethnic, cultural andreligious backgrounds. Although it is a common thing in the U.S., it reminds me that I am really no longer
living in Japan, because this kind of diversity is not common in Japan.
The reasons my students are studying Japanese are varied, but most of them have an interest in Japanese
animation (anime) and Japanese pop music (J-pop). I was surprised that some students know more aboutJapanese pop culture than me. I have heard that Japanese pop culture is very popular all over the world,
but I did not expect my students to like it so much. Other students study Japanese because it is sodifferent from English and one student told me she wants to know more about her heritage culture.
This semester, we have 4 classes including Japanese 1, 2 and a combined class for Japanese 3 to 5. In
total, approximately 80 students are studying Japanese at AHS. We also have a Japanese culture club thatmeets after school every Thursday, where students enjoy and promote Japanese culture by participating
in different school events such as the multicultural dinner. While participating in the multicultural dinner,
one student told me that he is going to take Japanese the next semester. I hope our activities will help
increase the number of Japanese language learners at our school.

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Co-teaching
My role in the classroom is to co-teach with my lead teacher, Mrs. Valdivia. We believe that it is important
to do everything together all the time. This means that we plan lessons, teach and assess students
together. After classes we reflect on our lessons, student progress, and discuss how to improve thelearning activities and assessments.
Through the past 5 months, I have come to understand the difficulty of planning lessons, which I havelearned is not that simple. Planning lessons require teachers to take into account different variables suchas proficiency and scaffolding. Additionally, I am learning about proficiency-based instruction. Based on
this instruction, teaching grammar is not as important as I used to think. I am also learning importantconcepts for teaching language such as formative assessment, performance-based assessment,differentiation in learning, and backward design.
I would like to thank Mrs. Valdivia for letting me try different learning activities. As an aspiring language
teacher myself, this experience will help me become a better teacher in the future.
Culture and Language
We do a lot of things related to Japanese culture in the classroom. For example, we learned about
festivals in Japan.
First, we invited Pittsburgh Taiko, which is a Japanese drumming group, to our class for a taiko workshop.
Students from Japanese 1 to 5 participated in the workshop and learned how to play Taiko. Before that,students had only learned about taiko, but Pittsburgh Taiko allowed students to experience it as well andthis was a very valuable cultural experience for our students.
Second, we cooked yakisoba (Japanese fried noodles) in the cooking class. Yakisoba is often eaten at
festivals in Japan and students had to prepare the dish themselves following a recipe written in Japanese,
which they really enjoyed. Mrs. Valdivia and I believe that hands-on experience is also important forlearning culture.
I believe that my other role is to introduce Japan and Japanese culture and at this point, I am taking theleadership role in planning cultural lessons, which is done according to yearly events. We recently had alesson about New Year in Japan and wrote Japanese style New Year's greeting cards.
Additionally, teaching Japanese at AHS has taught me the importance of teaching language and culture atthe same time. In the U.S., the national standard for language learning recommends educators to consider
a variety of ways to teach languages. This has given me a new perspective on how to teach and I am
constantly learning more about it.
My life in the United States
I am experiencing a lot of new things and enjoying not only my work but also life outside of school. This is
my first time living in a foreign country, so everything is new for me. One of best things I enjoyed isThanksgiving dinner with my host family, which was my first American cultural experience. Also, I amenjoying the Christmas season surrounded by very beautiful Christmas decorations at home. I would liketo thank my host family, the Roberts family. As a participant of J-LEAP, I am supposed to learn aboutAmerican culture and bring it back to Japan with me and I want to experience as much as I can during myPrivacy - Terms
homestay.

Additionally, I am trying to brush up on my English by attending events for English learners at the publiclibrary. I also made some friends with whom I exchange culture and language and hope to communicate
with as many people and learn as much as I can before I leave.
I am looking forward to being involved in more school community events next year. One of my goals is topromote more cultural activities in the Pittsburgh area.

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Japanese Langauge Education Update 2Teacher Training Program: Emily Orillon

2013 J-LEAP Report: Atsuya Yoshida2013 J-LEAP Report: Yuko Miyata

2013 JET-MIP Essay: Alex Leal

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2013 JET-MIP Essay: Aaron Ramirez

2013 JET-MIP Essay: Libby Ro2013 JET-MIP Essay: Viola Mocz

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