Wisconsin Association of Teachers of Japanese

President Magara Maeda UW-River Falls (715) 425-3121 magara.maeda@uwrf.edu President Ex-officio Takako Nakakubo UW-Madison (608) 262-3473 tnakakubo@wisc.edu

President-Elect Patricia Breun Madison Country Day School pbreun@madisoncountryday.org

Membership Information: aatj.org/membership WiATJ website: wisconsinatj.wordpress.com WiATJ Facebook: facebook.com/wiatj Secretary/Web Page Editor Shinji Takahashi UW-Milwaukee (414) 229-5650 takahash@uwm.edu

Treasurer Yu Kitamura Wisconsin Virtual School Kitamurayu2017@gmail.com Activities Director Yuko Kojima-Wert UW-Milwaukee (414) 229-5650 kojima@uwm.edu

elcome back to the 2022-2023 school year! IW

hope everyone had a relaxing and rejuvenating summer and it is off to a good start whether your mode of instruction is face-to-face, online, or anything in between.

WAFLT Fall Conference 2022

The 2022 WAFLT Fall Conference will be held November 3-5 and this will be a fully in-person event. This year's conference theme is Level Up: Embracing Change, Empowering Learners.

News Across Wisconsin

2022 Virtual Minnesota J-Quiz, Saturday, 2/12/2022 Teams from three Wisconsin high schools participated. Congratulations, Stone sensei (Denmark High School), and Patty sensei (Madison Country Day School). The Denmark teams included: — Hannah N., Mark W., and Dalton W. (Level 1) — Samantha S., and Makenzie P. (Level 3), and — Brook B., Leah P., and Victoria S. (Level 3) — Hannah, Mark, and Dalton’s team took third place in the Level 1.

Madison Country Day School teams st ndtook 1 & 2 place in the Level 4.

9th Annual Speech & Recitation Contest on Zoom by UW-Milwaukee Japanese program, 3/4/2022.

36th Annual Japanese Language Speech Contest (2022), Consulate General of Chicago, 3/26/2022. Kudos! Japanese National Honor Society (JNHS) award recipients! Tracy Leemon, Eli Nahkla, and Alice Shock at UWRF were inducted into the College Chapter of the JNHS in April, 2022. Recipients must have completed five semesters of Japanese language study, earned a GPA of 3.5 or higher in the language classes, hold an overall GPA of 3.0, and be nominated by an instructor. They were UWRF Maeda sensei’s students and graduated this past spring.

Alice Shock

Kudos! Global Seal of Biliteracy recipients!

Bevan Breau (UW-La Crosse) and Matthew Albee (UW-RF) received the Global Seal of Biliteracy in Japanese/ English. Bevan took four semesters and Matt took two semesters of Maeda sensei’s Japanese language course and reached a level of Intermediatemid-proficiency on the STAMP 4s test by Avant. This is CLP’s (Collaborative Language Program) first time piloting the STAMP test for the second and the fourth semester language students in the program.

Members Activities Update

2022 Virtual Annual Spring Conference (March 17-19, 2022) — Hanai sensei and Emori sensei (UW-Oshkosh) presented on “How to make the most of rapid development of one-to-one technology environment: New implementation model at elementary levels.” — Maeda sensei (UW-RF) co-presented with Sanae Jennings sensei from East Los Angeles Community College on “Onigiri Action, so what!?: Zero beginner Japanese learning community enrichment through Onigiri Actioat.” This presentation was the part of the pedagogy panel (Curriculum/Course Design and Implementation) titled “Dream Collaboration Between Table For Two USA (TFT) and University Japanese Classroom: A Pathway to Global Citizenship.” #EdamameChamp Workshop (April, 2022)

Maeda sensei’s students from UW-RF, UWSP, and UW-L participated #EdamameChamp Workshop by Table For Two. We learned about soy-related food in Japan and enjoyed the chopsticks game and making inarizushi.

AP Japanese Language & Culture Reading (June, 2022), Cincinnati, OH

Maeda sensei (UW-RF) and Kojima-Wert sensei participated in the AP Japanese Language & Culture reading and scoring of the exam. This is Kojima sensei’s first time and Maeda sensei’s third time doing this. This is a great professional development opportunity for high school and post secondary language educators. For those interested in becoming an AP reader, please visit the Becoming an AP Reader. For more information, please visit AP Japanese Language & Culture. AP Japanese Language & Culture and Exam Description (PDF) is particularly very useful and important.

Japanese Professional Night by Avello

The past two events were online due to Covid, but this time I was able to meet everyone in the long-awaited face-to-face, and the teachers were also excited!

Peace for Ukraine Collaboration Project

Magara Maeda’s university Japanese language classes and Mrs. Patty Breun’s high school Japanese language classes at Madison Country Day School collaborated and started a “Peace for Ukraine” campaign on Padlet. Students learned about Hiroshima peace tourism, the horror of the Atomic bomb, and Sadako & 1000 paper cranes. They made paper cranes and posted the image along with their short message for peace. The Padlet site was shared with one of the independent media in Ukraine.

This collaboration is part of Maeda sensei and Patty sensei’s action plan for the year-long AATJ/JFLA Advanced Leadership Training. During the last meeting of the training on July 30, 2022, Maeda sensei and Patty sensei reported how their action plan, “High school and university Japanese program collaboration” was implemented.

If you or your institution has any news, held any events, or received any awards, please share them with us so we can include them here in future newsletters. We would love to hear from you.

Magara Maeda