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It’s all about setting the stage and comprehensible input — hearing that wait time before I expect them to start producing the language. Having the authentic materials makes the whole setting of what I’m doing more realistic. So the kids can really feel like, “Hey, she’s in Japan right now. She’s wearing a Japanese robe that’s really from Japan.”
– Margaret Dyer
YEAR AT A GLANCE
Self
Personal information (e.g., name, age, pets)
Preferences (e.g., hobbies, sports, foods)
Future plans; Body and health
Family
Family members’ personal information
Home
Daily routines
Rooms in the house; Location of objects
Food
Fruits/vegetables; Japanese foods and dishes
Shopping and cooking; Money; Restaurants and ordering
School
Directions; School rooms and subjects
Daily Routines
Objects; Calendar; Weather
Nature
Weather; Community; Holidays
Pen pal letters
Margaret Dyer is the Japanese Curriculum Coordinator and teaches grades K-5 Japanese at Clarendon Elementary School in San Francisco, California. The school’s 532 students come from a diverse community that includes many Japanese American families. Students participate in either the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program (JBBP), which offers Japanese language and culture education, or the Second Community Program, which offers Italian language and culture education. Both programs rely on strong parent involvement.
The JBBP is part of the sequential Japanese K-12 program in the San Francisco Unified School District (see Resources). The program, which began in 1973, grew out of the desire of Japanese American parents to keep their heritage language and culture alive for their children. Clarendon Elementary’s Japanese Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools Program integrates Japanese with the core curriculum of the school district. In this program, content is woven into standards-based Japanese lessons and Japanese is woven into the instruction of other subjects for all students. To extend their Japanese cultural and language learning, native and heritage Japanese students also meet once a week in a heritage language class taught by a native Japanese speaker.
Ms. Dyer refers to the Standards and the Scope and Sequence for the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program when designing her lessons (see Resources). She begins by looking at each unit as a whole and determining what she wants students to accomplish by the end of the unit. She then considers the content that students studied in previous years and integrates those elements to deepen students’ understanding. Ms. Dyer also selects the vocabulary words students need to review and the new terms she wants to introduce. When organizing individual lessons, Ms. Dyer follows the California Department of Education’s five-step process (see Promoting Attractions of Japan).
In the videotaped lesson, students began the School unit with new vocabulary related to daily routines. They used the new vocabulary in guided practice and then transitioned to application and extension activities. In a follow-up lesson, the students described their own schedules and incorporated vocabulary they learned from the Family, Home, and Food units.
Approximately one-third of the students in this class were native or heritage Japanese speakers. In this lesson, Ms. Dyer challenged the native and heritage students to be more precise in the times they list for their daily routines. In other lessons, she has given native and heritage students opportunities to challenge themselves through additional reading and writing assignments.