CJLEA Newsletter  
A publication of the Colorado Japanese Language Education Association
December 2000

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• President's Message
• Meet the Officers
• Website of the Month
• Report on TPRS Workshop

From my window I see snow-capped Pikes Peak nearby, reminding me that winter is just around the corner. I hope that you enjoy the remainder of the Year of the Dragon.

At the recent CJLEA fall meeting in Denver, Ryoko Yoshida Keaton and I were voted in as Co-Presidents of the association. We look forward to working with all the officers and members of CJLEA to strengthen the work which has been started by others before us, and just as importantly, to facilitate new ideas from the membership.

Our goals for this year include disseminating information to members about professional development, supporting Japanese programs around the state, and reaching out to a wider audience in Colorado. This year we will also continue to work towards acquiring a tax-exempt status for CJLEA based on the important groundwork of Hiroko Storm-sensei, our outgoing Co-President. We welcome any ideas for making CJLEA the kind of association that will address your educational needs.

We also look forward to work begun by the two new subcommittees of Technology and Outreach that were formed during the last academic year. These subcommittees are extremely important in helping us realize goals of educating ourselves in recent technological developments in order to enhance teaching, and to identify and reach out to more educators of Japanese K-16. We appreciate the work done by Croddy-sensei, Guajardo-sensei, Keaton-sensei, McAdams-sensei, Saegusa-sensei and Sakakura-sensei on the Technology subcommittee and Beecken-sensei, Clark-sensei, Sakakura-sensei, Sandlin-sensei and Storm-sensei on the Outreach subcommittee.

A vital part of CJLEA is the opportunity to gather twice a year to share information about teaching Japanese. We wish to extend our thanks to Gordon-sensei, our outgoing Co-President, for organizing our fall meeting at Metro State College in Denver. We appreciated the fellowship, good snacks, and stimulating presentations, including Gordon-sensei's own slide show on Japanese signs. I know that I always learn more about teaching from these presentations and look forward to future meetings.

Please mark your calendars for two upcoming meetings. 1) On Saturday, February 24, 2001, there will be a CCFLT meeting at Longmont, CO. CJLEA has been asked to organize some cultural presentations at the conference. Saegusa-sensei has been instrumental in encouraging CJLEA members to participate in this opportunity to raise our visibility in the state; Beecken-sensei has volunteered to organize sessions of calligraphy, kitsuke, and origami, along with another instructor from Colorado State University. 2) The next CJLEA meeting will be held on Saturday, March 31, 2001. Thanks go to Mako Beecken-sensei for agreeing to host our spring CJLEA meeting at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She is already busy organizing details and requesting funding from her institution to help defray some of the costs.

I would like to report on a number of new opportunities for those in the field of teaching Japanese. I attended the recent annual conference of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) held in Boston, and was impressed by the large number of sessions (over twenty) devoted to Japanese K-16 and the wide ranging topics they addressed. It is my hope that CJLEA members can explore and make the most of these opportunities. As a board member of both the Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ) and the Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) , I am impressed by the number of possibilities which exist now for K-16 students and educators. In particular, there are a number of professional development opportunities for those who are members of the ATJ or the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT) , and I encourage you to consider becoming a member of one of these organizations, both in order to receive useful information on teaching and to be eligible to apply for the following programs. These opportunities will enable you to make CJLEA an even stronger organization through your active presence in the field of Japanese education in Colorado.

Teachers of Japanese K-12 should contact the AATJ listed below to pursue the following two opportunities. 1) Professional Development Funding: K-12 teachers of Japanese can take advantage of professional development and in-service training opportunities through this fund. A limited number of grants are available to individual teachers for a minimum of $50 and a maximum of $600. Funding may be used to cover workshop or conference attendance, but not tuition costs for credit. Grant funds may also be used to hire a substitute teacher while you engage in an activity. This is partially funded by The Japan Foundation. 2) Middlebury Summer Language and Pedagogy Institute: Non-native-speaking K-12 teachers of Japanese may apply for a total of ten fellowships to study Japanese intensively for five weeks (June 8-July 11, 2001), followed by a one-week pedagogy seminar. This includes classroom use of technology, materials development, and advocacy for Japanese language K-12 instruction. The deadline for application is January 12, 2001. The Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese, Campus Box 279, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0279. Phone (303-492-5487), fax (303-492-5856), and e-mail (atj@colorado.edu).

Useful teaching materials can be found in the Japanese language Teachers Network (JLTN) Quarterly which the AATJ has been asked to take over from the Center for the Improvement of Teaching of Japanese Language and Culture in High School (CITJ) up until now based in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois. The latest issue includes ready-to-use material written by Christopher S. Thompson (Assistant Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at Ohio University) based on NFL Football. The eleven-page Teacher's Guide/student handout insert has a section devoted to katakana and conversational activities, and another on internet-based activities. Thompson-sensei has addressed National Standards in the detailed Teacher's Guide to each activity; although designed for upper level secondary students of Japanese, these activities could easily work successfully in the college classroom as well. All teachers of Japanese K-12 are invited to submit classroom materials for future publication. In addition to receiving feedback from further classroom testing, there is a $100 honorarium for a contributor.

Although one of our goals is to disseminate information and reach out to a wider audience within the state of Colorado, here are two opportunities for members of CJLEA who wish to take their presentations to a national audience. 1) Call for proposals on "Research and Development in the Less Commonly Taught Languages" The National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) will hold its fourth annual conference April 6-8, 2001 in Washington, D. C. The deadline for proposals is December 1, 2000. All proposals should be sent by hard copy or e-mail to: Frederick H. Jackson, NCOLCTL Conference Program Chair, School of Language Studies, Foreign Service Institute, 4000 Arlington Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22207, E-mail: jacksonfh@state.gov. 2) I encourage you to respond to the Call for Proposals for November 15-18, 2001 for the next ACTFL conference at Washington, D. C. For questions, contact ncjlt@hotmail.com attention: ACTFL Chair. The deadline for all session proposals is January 2, 2001.

I look forward to working with all of you in the coming year. Please let me know how CJLEA can work for you. Yoroshiku onegai itashimasu!

Joan E. Ericson
Associate Professor of Japanese
Colorado College

Joan E. Ericson, President
I teach Japanese literature, culture, and language courses at Colorado College. Raised in Hiroshima Prefecture, I started out speaking Japanese with only a Hiroshima dialect, but due to study at the University of Hawaii and Columbia University, I now teach in standard Japanese. I am interested in the training of future primary and secondary Japanese-language educators, and helped write a successful proposal for state licensure in Japanese at Colorado College. When I am not busy teaching, I do research in Japanese literature on Japanese women's literature [which I published as the book
Be a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature (University of Hawaii Press, 1997)] and more recently on children's history and literature. For the past two years I have had the privilege of serving as a board member of both the Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ) and the Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ). I am raising my two daughters in Japanese, and would like hints from others who have tried to do the same in the United States.
E-mail: JEricson@ColoradoCollege.edu

Ryoko Yoshida Keaton, Co-President and Public Relations
I have been teaching Japanese for business communities in Colorado Springs for over ten years. Prior to moving to Colorado, I taught Japanese at the University of Oregon as a Graduate Teaching Fellow while taking Japanese pedagogy classes from Dr. Kataoka. Current projects include web-based courseware development for Professor Guajardo at U.S. Air Force Academy and translation of computer related documents. Last June, I had the opportunity to present AZLA Technology & Courseware Production Workshop at Arizona State University. I am excited about being able to use one of the latest tools of the current technology trend to help improve communication among members. If you have any questions or interests about this electronic newsletter, I can be contacted at Ryoko.Keaton@tbr-inc.com.

Kaoru Slotsve, Vice President and Public Relations
I'm a second year teacher of Japanese at two high schools in Casper, Wyoming. Although it's not easy to develop the first Japanese program in the state from zero, I've been enjoying teaching so far. CJLEA was brave enough to appoint me as a vice-president and public relations; I will do my best in making CJLEA friendlier and more resourceful for every member no matter how far he/she lives. I'm glad that the first e-CJLEA news letter was published in October. The published book is Kinki Japanese, which explains dialects and pop culture of the Kinki (Kansai) region. (from Tuttle Library) E-mail: dagu@prodigy.net

Kyoko Saegusa, Secretary
I have been an instructor of Japanese with the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder since 1995. Prior to that, I taught Japanese at Arizona State University for 15 years. I got into this profession from the back door, so to speak, when teachning Japanese to non-native speakers was not a well-established, full-fledged professional field. My teaching experience in the U.S. has been mostly at the college level, and I have always felt sorry for American students who begin learning Japanese at college. I strongly believe that everyone will be better off if we begin teaching Japanese in high school, if not sooner. CJLEA is a great forum for someone like myself who learns a lot from working together with like-minded people.
It's been a priviledge to work with you all!
E-mail: saegusa@stripe.colorado.edu

Mako Beecken, Treasurer
Lecturer, Colorado State University
E-mail: makobee@lamar.colostate.edu

D. H. Gordon, Past-Co-President
Assistant Professor, Metro State College/Colorado School of Mines
E-mail: dgordon@dimensional.com

Hiroko Storm, Past-Co-President
I taught at Teikyo Loretto Heights University. Courses which I have taught include Linguistics, Japanese, Methods in Teaching Japanese, Translation in Japanese/English, Japanese Language and Culture, Japanese Civilization and Culture, Classical Japanese Literature, and Modern Japanese Literature. My most recent publication, which came out in November 2000, is "Language Change: Accents in the Tokyo Dialect" in Japan's Transition to the 21st Century, published by the Center for Japan Studies, TLHU.
E-mail: hsstorm@worldnet.att.net

Yumiko Guajardo, Past-Past-President
I teach Japanese language courses at the US Air Force Academy. We have 10 different courses here at the Academy: Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced Level language courses plus other upper division content-based courses in Literature, History, Current Issues and Government & Constitution. I have been teaching here with the Dept of Foreign Languages since 1996, and prior to this assignment, I was with the East Asian Studies Dept at the University of Arizona.
E-mail: Yumiko.Guajardo@usafa.af.mil

Japanese for Young English Speakers
This is about Japanese for Young English Speakers (J-YES), a high school level Japanese language textbook. One characteristic of this textbook, according to the "Introduction" of this website, is that it gives teachers flexibility, that is, they can select any lessons in any order, and can select the content they wish to teach within each lesson, depending on the students' needs. This website has a sample lesson, audio practice, etc. From it, you can go to many other websites on useful information about Japanese culture.

On Friday, November 17th, two colleagues and I participated in Blaine Ray's TPR"S" workshop in Denver. In this last summer, I watched a couple of TPRS videos, but it didn't make that much sense to me, to be honest. In the workshop, I was selected as a demo group member because I knew nothing about French. However, in twenty minutes of demonstration by Susan Gross in Colorado Springs, I managed to say a story line in French, which was a big surprise for me (and my colleagues for sure). The story I said in French was...

There are mama squarrel and three baby squarrels. Mama squarrel sees baby squarrels, and baby squarrels see mama squarrel. A cat is hungry. The cat sees baby squarrels, "Mmmm, yum, yum." Baby squarrels see the cat. They cried, "Mama, Mama!" Mama squarrel sees the cat, but she says "Bow wow!!" The cat runs away.

In the demo., we learned 6 vocabularies with gesture, but no grammar explanation. I didn't make a sentence in my head before speaking, I just said it. I didn't memorize them either. I just said it. Interestingly, I still remember the story in French. Through this experience, I thought this method might be worth trying. Although there are only a few books for Japaense teachers, I think I can apply English version of TPRS to Japanese. The biggest challenge for me is creating story lines funny enough so students pay attention and try to explain the story in Japanese.

It's not easy to adapt TPRS completely in my program right now, but I would like to take some skills and elements in gradually. Now, what I really want to see is the demonstration by a teacher of Japanese, not Spanish, French, or other languages!!!

WWW Resources:

• Total Physical Response (TPR)
  Synopsis prepared by Lee Risley, FLTEACH
• Total physical response
  by Judie Haynes, EverythingESL.net
• Total Physical Response Storytelling
  by Valeri Marsh, TPR Storytelling Workshops
• TPR and Beyond
  by Brett Reynolds, Sakuragaoka Girls Junior & Senior High School
• What is TPR?
  About The Originator
  Sky Oaks Productions, Inc.

Transpacific Business Resources, Inc.