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JANUARY, 2018: BREEZE ISSUE #123
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OF
JAPANESE2017 J-LEAP REPORTBY MIKA MUCHIMARoswell High School
Roswell, GA
Konnichiwa! My name is Mika Muchima. I’mfrom Kumamoto, and I have been teaching at
Roswell High School as an assistant teacher.
Since I was an elementary school student, I
have had a lot of opportunities to communicate
with people from foreign countries. I also likewatching movies, especially ones made inAmerica. Because of those reasons, working in America someday had been my dream and now
my dream has come true at Roswell High School!
Georgia
When I heard that I was going to Georgia for the first time, I had no idea where Georgia was. I
knew the name of it from the brand of coffee though! Georgia is in the southeastern part ofAmerica and is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. It has the largest
airport and aquarium in America. The headquarters of CNN, Coca Cola and Aflac are located in
Atlanta, which is the state’s capital, and its most populous city. There are more than five
hundred companies which are related to Japan in Georgia. Japanese culture, especiallyJapanese foods are getting more popular, and I can find so many Japanese restaurants andfood at grocery stores. I can’t believe that five months have already passed in Georgia. I reallylike it here because it is similar to Kumamoto in nature, climate and how people are nice to me!
Japanese classes at Roswell High School
Roswell High School is a public school that was established in 1949. But the current facility
opened in 1990. The number of the students is about 2200. The school is comprised ofPrivacy - Terms
students from all over the world, and this rarely happens in Japanese schools. There are worldlanguage classes that are Japanese, French,
Latin, German and Italian and often students
take one of them. In Japanese class, there are
7 levels: 5H, 4H, 3H, 3, 2H, 2 and 1. Among
those 7 levels, I teach 5 classes. There are 31
students in the largest class. The reason thestudents take Japanese is because they like
Japanese culture especially Manga, Anime andJapanese foods. Some students have studied
Japanese since they were in middle school
and that is also one of the reason they learn
Japanese at high school. We use textbooks
named Adventure in Japanese and at the end of each unit, we often do skit projects wherestudents show their Japanese skills they learned in the unit. I think they have more
opportunities to do speaking activities compared to when I was studying English in Japan.
Each unit in the text book has a section about Japanese culture. I do some presentations aboutJapanese culture along with the topic so that the students can learn more about Japaneseculture from what I experienced in Japan. I use Japanese that students learned in the unit.
When I spoke about school uniforms and rules, I showed some pictures of my high school’s
uniform and classroom. I also have a conversation time called Muchima sensei to Oshaberi forthe first ten minutes just after the class starts. I choose two students randomly each day andthey each have one on one conversation time with me only in Japanese. We don’t grade it. It isjust for fun and gives them the opportunity to speak in Japanese with a native speaker. Onuki
sensei, my lead teacher, suggested this activity to me so that I can get to know more about thestudents.
Outside of schoolI had an opportunity to teach Japanese at the Ron Clark Academy, which is a private school, forfour days in October. There were twenty-eight students, and I taught them basic Japanesephrases and shared Japanese culture with them so that students could be ready for a trip toJapan. It was a big challenge for me to teach by myself, without my LT. But it was a really good
opportunity to learn how to do a lesson and control students by myself. I also learned how
important it is to prepare for lessons beforehand. I also go to a middle school once a month tohelp a Japanese club. When we had the club in September, we had Otsukimi-dango (Japanesesweet dumpling ball). In October, we made Onigiri (rice ball) shaped like mummies,Frankensteins and Jack-O’-Lanterns. I am glad to communicate with not only with high school
students but also middle school students here.
My lead teacher, Onuki-sensei, also participated in the J-LEAP program during the first year.
She was also given the opportunity to teach as an assistant teacher in Georgia. She always
helps me and provides feedback on how I can improve myself as an AT in a class. One of mygoals is for students to have more fun learning Japanese with me in a class. I will do my best toachieve my goal! Thank you for reading!!
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Breeze #1232017 J-LEAP Report: Keiko Suzuki

2017 J-LEAP Report: Mika Muchima

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