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2017 J-LEAP REPORTOCTOBER, 2017: BREEZE ISSUE #120
A FREE MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER FOR FRIENDS OF JAPAN & TEACHERS OFJAPANESE

2017 J-LEAP REPORTBY MITSUHIRO KONO
Sand Lake Elementary SchoolAnchorage, AK
Hi I am Mitsuhiro Kono and I work as aJapanese assistant teacher at Sand Lake
Elementary, which is located in Anchorage,Alaska.
Life in Alaska
Alaska is the biggest state in the U.S., however not so many people live here. The populationof Alaska is estimated to be about 750,000 and this is less than that of my hometown, Fukui
prefecture (about 800,000). Alaska is the third least populous state in the U.S. andapproximately half of Alaska’s residents live in Anchorage.
The first time I heard that my work place would be Anchorage, I had no idea. Even I had neverthought about living in Alaska in my life so I imagined myself living on glaciers, which I ended
up finding out was totally wrong. Actually, Anchorage is rich in nature and such a nice place tolive. Soon after I came here, I noticed people here live with ethnic and cultural diversity. Whenwe walk around downtown, we see variety of people who have different cultural backgroundwalking around and living in harmony. So, for outsiders like me, living in the city is socomfortable.
Our school: Sand Lake Elementary

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Sand Lake Elementary is located south west of Anchorage. As you can see from the name, theschool faces a small lake named Sand Lake. Sand Lake Elementary is the only elementary
school that offers Japanese immersion program in Alaska. And the school has about 330
student participants in the program through kindergarten to sixth grades. The immersion
program continues at Mears Middle School and Dimond High School. Our school has “Tomo NoKai”, a group that supports Japanese immersion education and they help us with annualevents.
In our Immersion program, we have two teachers for each grade, which are English andJapanese teachers. We divide students into two classes and we teach separately. Students
switch classes during certain times, and in each class they are allowed to use only thelanguage that the teacher speaks. I teach first-graders with my Lead Teacher, Christy-sensei.
She is a cheerful and energetic teacher and she always gives me motivation. Whenever I see
her at school, and I am tired or depressed, I am encouraged by her to work. She is a very
experienced teacher as well, so I have learned a lot from her although I have been here just for
two months. Thanks to her help, every day I feel my teaching skills are getting better andbetter and I come to have more confidence in myself.
Because we are class room teachers, we teachnot only Japanese but also other subjects,
such as science and social studies. It’s
challenging to teach such subjects using only
Japanese to students who have a limited
Japanese vocabulary, but we devise a way ofteaching so that students can learn that is alsofun. Indeed, most students try to listen to us
very carefully in order to understand directions
and explanations we give. And I am so
impressed with their ability to absorb
knowledge very fast. Although it has been onlya month since I started teaching the students
here, I feel the connection with them, which I really enjoy about being a classroom teacher.
The school has several activities and one of the activities is Taiko Drumming Club. Upper third
grade students can join the club and they practice performing after school once a week. The
club has some classes for beginners to intermediates, kids to adults. And the adult class isopen to the community, which I also join. They sometimes perform in events and theperformance is so powerful. Other than Taiko club, in September we have running club afterschool. We organize the event so that students can keep fit and they run around the school. I
joined the activity and enjoyed interacting with older students who I usually don’t have achance to talk to at school.
Outside of school
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Currently I live with a host family. They have two children and they go to Sand Lake Elementaryand join the immersion program as well. So I sometimes help them with their Japanese
homework and play Japanese games such as Karuta with them. Our house faces a canal whichconnects to small lake so we enjoy lake activity a lot in the summer season. The family often
takes me out and we do many things together. In August, we went fishing at a port town,Valdez. We caught plenty of silver salmon and we made smoked salmon and soaked salmon
egg. In September, we went to Denali National Park which I had been looking forward tovisiting. After all, I enjoy Alaskan life and I am happy to be here from my heart.
My life in Anchorage has just begun. And I am sure I can spend meaningful time here for thenext two years. I will try to take in every experience that I can get!

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2017 J-LEAP Report: Miyako Tada

2017 J-LEAP Report: Mitsuhiro Kono

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