|
JAPANESE
LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP "AURORA" FOUNDATION
Updates from our previous
JLSF Scholarship and Aurora Challenge Grant recipients!
2000 - Joy R. Dickson
2000 - Michael Van Krey
2001 - Tracy Pollard
2001 - James Buoye
2001 - Matt Marr
2002 - Jennifer Pedersen
2002 - Bonnie Wolfgang
2002 - Aaron Woolfolk
2003 - Matthew Burdelski
2003 - Alan Bair
2003 - Amy Grover
********************************************************
Joy R. Dickson - 2000
I am still teaching at the Thomas Edison Middle School in
Brighton,
Massachusetts. My program is finishing its fifth year. I was
able to take
students to Japan again in 2001. I have spoken at many teacher
conferences
and trainings since the scholarship. A curriculum unit that I
wrote was
published. It was not Japanese related. I was on the cover of
the Winter
2003 Wellesley College Alumnae Magazine. The article was about
my
experience being a Japanese teacher. I was a mentor teacher to
a graduate student wanting to be a Japanese language teacher
last year and will probably do it again next year. This year,
I also survived on the Japan Foundation's Grant Proposal Committee.
Top of page
**********************
Michael Van Krey -Year 2000
I just completed his sixth year of teaching Japanese at
Evanston Township High School, Illinois. Since my first year,
when I had
two classes of Japanese, my program has expanded as there are
currently
eight sections (160 students) and a second Japanese teacher has
joined my
small "department." I am working a lot with technology
and computer usage
in the foreign language classroom and have recently had an article
accepted
by ASCD which will be published this summer. I was also a recipient
of a
fellowship to spend six weeks in Japan last summer (2002) to
develop
curricular units using video technology. I also completed his
secondary
certification and a Masters in Teaching degree last spring and
is currently
serving on a committee through the Illinois Board of Education
to add
Japanese certification to the state's roster of certifiable areas.
Comment from Michael :
I hope it is obvious through my work in Japanese teaching that
your
scholarship has tremendously aided my craft. I am eternally grateful
to
you and hope you are able to continue this wonderful opportunity
for many
years to come.
Top of page
**********
Tracy Pollard -Year 2001
M.A. Japanese language and Pedagogy and Teacher Certification
program at University of Colorado at Boulder.
2001 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
*********
James Buoye -Year 2001
I studied at the Japan
Foundation's Japanese Language Institute in Urawa during the
summer of
2001. The following year I participated in a Summer Institute
for the
integration of technology into the teaching of Japanese sponsored
by the
Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese.
Currently, I am serving as supervisor of world languages for
the
Northern Valley Regional High School district, Dumont, New Jersey.
The district encompasses two separate regional high schools with
a combined enrollment of 2, 200 students.
2001 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
**********
Matt Marr - Year 2001
I have completed my course work and field exams for the Ph.D.
in sociology at UCLA. I have recently passed my oral defense
of my dissertation proposal entitled, "Transitioning Out
of Homelessness in Two Global Cities: Los Angeles and Tokyo.
" I will be beginning my participant observation and interview
research among 15 persons attempting to escape homelessness in
Los Angeles in July 2003, and leaving to replicate this research
in Tokyo in March 2004. The preliminary research I conducted
in Tokyo with the support of the Aurora Challenge Grant was fundamental
to setting up my dissertation research project.
2001 Aurora Challenge Grant winner
Top of page
*********
Jennifer Pedersen, Aurora Scholarship recipient-Year 2002
Japanese language instructor in the Omaha Public Schools, elementary
school level in Omaha, Nebraska.
2002 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
********
Bonnie Wolfgang -Year 2002
I am still teaching Japanese at Penn High School in Minshawaka,
Indiana, and of course the students enjoyed my stories about
my summer experience as an Aurora scholarship recipient at the
Japan Foundation's Japanese Language Institute in Urawa, Japan.
Currently, I am teaching English conversation to a small group
of Japanese businessmen who are on a special program at Notre
Dame University, and I find myself using some of the conversation
topics that our instructors at Urawa used. Who would have thought?!!!
2002 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
*******
Aaron Woolfolk - Year 2002
I have been working to make my film project "Harimaya-bashi"
a reality. I have taken several trips to Japan, and the project
is slowly coming together. Also, with "Harimaya-bashi"
I was the recipient of the 2002-2003 Walt Disney Studios/ABC
Television New Talent Development grant fellowship. Now I am
trying to raise the financing to make the movie, which I hope
to film in 2004.
2002 Aurora Challenge Grant winner
Top of page
********
Matthew Burdelski -Year 2003
My experience in Japan as an AURORA Foundation
Scholarship recipient
Currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian
Languages & Cultures at UCLA, over the past decade I have
been developing a keen interest in the teaching of Japanese as
a foreign language. Soon after receiving an M.A. in Japanese
Language and Pedagogy (U of Oregon, 1998), I went to Japan on
a Monbusho scholarship to further pursue this interest.
During this time, as a pilot study I began video recording
interaction in Japanese family households in the Kansai area.
This project was initiated with an understanding that a foundation
of language teaching is discourse and context, and that analyzing
naturally occurring interaction could inform my understanding
of the Japanese language and its teaching. This pilot study has
evolved into dissertation research, in which I will examine how
young Japanese male and female children are socialized into a
socially preferred “indirect” communicative style through
interaction with caregivers and other interlocutors (e.g. grandparents,
siblings, peers).
With support from AURORA, I spent 10 weeks in the Kansai region
in summer 2003 for observation and recording of language socialization
practices. This second pilot study was narrower in scope than
the first pilot study in that all families had a two-year old
child, introduced to me through mutual acquaintances in the Kansai
area. Over the ten weeks, I observed interaction in six households
and video recorded 36 hours of interaction. This pilot study
serves as the foundation for a future longitudinal, ethnographic
study (2004-2005) in which I will observe and record interaction
involving young children over the course of one year. The summer
pilot study was crucial in justifying and lending authenticity
to the proposal for further research. On a casual note, my experience
in Japan this summer was again a memorable one. Six families
invited me into their homes and into their lives, without seeming
to mind that I was observing and video recording their interaction.
I was able to capture interactions in which young children took
part in a range of activities in and around the family household,
including playing, food preparation (e.g. washing rice), household
chores (e.g. ironing), and caring for the family pet. Outside
of the recording sessions, there wereseveral occasions in which
I was invited into their homes to just relax, eat, play with
the children, and the like. At the end of my stay, the children,
in particular, expressed sadness in my leaving. I promised to
return the following year. During my relatively brief stay, I
made many new acquaintances and friends, and continue to build
a web of relationships that I hope contribute to strengthening
ties between our two cultures.
2003 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
*****************
Alan Bair - Year 2003
With the short lead time between the awarding of the Aurora
Foundation
Challenge Grant and the Shiromi Kagura I want to document, I
plan to shoot
the Kagura in the winter of 2003. This would allow me to do better
planning
and marketing, and to seek additional support for a photo exhibit
before starting. I would like to thank all the members and sponsors
of the Aurora Foundation for their support.
2003 Aurora Challenge Grant Winner
Top of page
************
Amy Grover -Year 2003
Immersion Teacher Experiences Immersion!
I spent 5 weeks in Japan this summer courtesy of a scholarship
from the ”Aurora” Japanese Language Scholarship Foundation
of Los Angeles. This Aurora scholarship is awarded each year
to two teachers of Japanese in the U.S. who are not native Japanese
speakers. The scholarship has a $5000 value which includes airfare
to Japan on JAL and tuition to a Japanese language learning program
in Japan. Participants set their own plan for their time in Japan
(including length of stay) and can choose a language program
that suits them.
I teach kindergarten in the Japanese Magnet Program (partial
immersion) of Portland Public Schools in Portland, Oregon. This
scholarship gave me the opportunity to do some things I have
wanted to do for a long time.
First of all I had the opportunity to work on my own Japanese
language skills. I attended the Ceran Lingua school in Osaka
for two weeks. It is a residential “immersion-style”
language program in which students live at the school and have
intensive language lessons all day long, and the target language
must be spoken in common areas at all times, including meals,
breaks, etc. It turned out that at the time I was there, there
was only one other student studying Japanese, and our levels
were different, so we each had our own teacher! It was really
an optimal experience for me, having private lessons all day
long for two weeks with a teacher who was a great match for me.
I was able to set my own goals for what I wanted to learn, ask
any questions I wanted, receive immediate feedback. . . This
was important for me because, although speaking Japanese all
day is not new for me, studying Japanese is something I hadn't
done in about 12 years, and I’d learned to do a good job
of “hiding what I don’t know”!
Another exciting part of my time in Japan was that for one
week of my trip I met up with the 5th graders from my school,
Richmond Elementary. Most of our 5th graders take a much-anticipated
trip to Japan during the summer after they “graduate”
from elementary school. This is a trip planned and executed by
our parent organization, Oya No Kai, but the parents welcome
teachers who are able to join in. This year’s group of 5th
graders was special to me because they were my first group of
kindergarteners six years ago. I spent a week with them in Toyama
prefecture, which happens to be where I lived for three years
while on the JET program about 10 years ago. The 5th graders
(and adults) did homestays, and students attended two full regular
days of school in 6th grade classrooms at Fukuno Elementary School
in Toyama, in addition to a variety of other cultural experiences
(making soba, making washi, trying Japanese hot spring baths,
etc). I was very impressed with our students’ language ability
and especially with their willingness to try to use the language
and sensitivity to the culture. Remembering kindergarten in the
U.S. when most of these students knew no Japanese to begin with,
it was a really moving experience to see them sitting side by
side with Japanese students in classrooms in Japan, participating
in lessons in math, social studies, art, PE, etc. I feel like
I got a fuller picture of what our students are capable of when
they leave elementary school, and was really inspired by that
“end result” to keep putting in 100% at the kindergarten
level.
In addition to these “main events” I also searched
for and found a lot of relevant materials for my classroom (mainly
children's books) and renewed connections with friends and former
colleagues in Japan. A very worthwhile trip!
2004 JLSF Scholarship Winners
Top of page
|
