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

We hope that everyone is having a great spring semester!

WAFLT Fall Conference 2022

The WAFLT Fall Conferenc e will be held on November 3-5 this year. WiATJ is hosting a Share Fair during the conference. Please let the WiATJ president know if you are interested in presenting/sharing for the Share Fair. The WiATJ Business Meeting is scheduled immediately after the Share Fair (date/time is TBA). Please join us to connect, reconnect with fellow Japanese teachers and anyone who is interested in Japanese language education. Everyone is welcome!

News Across Wisconsin

Three Wisconsin high schools participated in the 2022 Virtual M N J-Quiz on February 12, 2022. This was the first time for these schools to join the Minnesota competition and we look forward to collaborating with the Minnesota Japanese language educators/J-Quiz organizing committee in the near future.

Members Activities Update

Publication

With leadership from Lauren Rosen, Magara Maeda, along with her Collaborative Language Program colleagues, contributed to a chapter in the book called “Handbook of Research on Effective Online Language Teaching in a Disruptive Environment.” The chapter title is “How Reflective Practice Informs Blended and Online Language Ins truction.” For more information, please visit this link.

2022 Advanced Leadership Training

WiATJ president and vice president, Maeda sensei and Patty sensei, participated in the 2022 AATJ /JFLA Virtual Advanced Leadership Training. They are currently working on an action plan to empower/enrich the WiATJ community.

This is the first Advanced Leadership Training that is organized by the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) and the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles (JFLA) involves a series of 2-day virtual workshops: (1) November 6-7, 2021; (2) February 2022 (mid-term reporting of an action plan); and (3) J uly 2022 (final reporting of the action plan). Since 2008, AATJ/JFLA has conducted an annual Leadership Training in order to prepare teachers who advocate at the regional, state, and national lev els for Japanese Language and Culture education. Due to the pandem ic, leadership training has been offered virtually since 2020. For this first Advanced Leadership Training, selected individuals who, over the past five years, have either participated in the previous trainings or have been J-Leap program lead teachers were invited. The goal of the Advanced Leadership Training is two- fold—to enable participants to deepen and extend their work with fellow world language teachers and to foster a high level of leadership among leaders of Japanese language education in the U.S.

2022 Virtual AATJ Annual Spring Conference (March 17-19, 2022)

We would love to hear from you! Please share your/your program’s updates, events, activities, and awards with us!

Magara Maeda Moved recently? Changed jobs? Changed names?

Update your WAFLT profile! Your profile inform ation is the main vehicle for WAFLT to keep in touch with you and pass on information about what is happening in our organiz ation. Verify/update your own information today: 1. Go to waflt.org and click on “Login” from the right end of the menu bar at the top. — Don’t remember your password? Click on “Forgot Password” and retrieve it using your email address or login ID. 2. Type in your login ID or email address and your password to enter. — Still can’t login? DO NOT create a new login! Ins tead, contact webmaster@waflt.org for assistance. 3. On the left click account information. 4. Click edit at the top to m ake changes. Don’t forget to save! — If possible add a personal email address in addition to the s chool one as some schools block waflt.org.