A Free E-Newsletter for Friends of Japan & Teachers of Japanese
This month marks the second anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, and we will be organizing a series of film screenings to commemorate the disaster and tireless efforts of the people in the Tohoku region. We are also working with the JET Alumni Association of Southern California to present a special screening of the new documentary film "Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story" directed by Regge Life on March 9th. As March is the end of Japanese fiscal year, we will be working as busy as ever, yet we also look forward to the new fiscal year, which we will announce many fun and resourceful events for our subscribers. Finally, I would like to welcome Mr. Tatsuya Kawashima to the JFLA team and I hope you will come out to one of our future events to meet him.
Misako Ito, Director
Spring term of our Japanese language courses will last eight weeks starting April 20 and we will again be offering a 10% discount if you apply before the early bird deadline. A new course titled Fun with Friends is available in our Everyday Japanese series, which also includes Mastering Kana and Making Friends 1 & 2. Business Japanese will also be offered again. We hope you will learn Japanese with us this spring.
In mid-February, we announced the start of several grant programs that we organize annually in support of Japanese-Language Education in the United States. These include the Salary Assistance Grant for Japanese Language Courses (Deadline: 4/10/2013). Japanese Language Contest Grant (2nd Deadline: 9/3/2013), Japanese- Materials Purchase Grant (1st Deadline: 3/15/2013, 2nd Deadline: 9/16/2013) and Japanese-Language Education Grant (Deadline: 2 months prior to project start date).
Please join us as we explore the US Japan Relationship in 2013 with Aiko Doden, senior commentator on international affairs at NHK.
Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story is a film about Taylor Anderson and young people just like her who travel the world trying to make a difference. Taylor was an extraordinary American who dedicated herself to teaching Japanese children, living her dream right up to the events of March 11, 2011.
In celebration of Hinamatsuri, also known as Japanese Doll Festival or Girls' Day, which is held on March 3, we will be displaying our Hina-ningyo (Japanese doll) set in our meeting room for the month of February and the first week of March. This custom of displaying dolls began during the Heian period (8-10th century AD) when people believed that the dolls possessed the power to contain evil spirits.
The American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) Annual Spring Conference will feature more than 100 presentations on various aspects of Japanese language and literature, as well as two special events: a language textbooks workshop sponsored by four Japanese publishers (9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.); and a lunch workshop on developing materials for teaching about the 3/11 disaster sponsored by the Inter University Center of Yokohama and the Japan Foundation (12:40 - 1:30 p.m.). You do not need to register for the AATJ Conference to attend the IUC-JF Workshop.
Join us as we invite Debra Samuels, author of the popular cookbook "My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family" for an informative lecture on Japanese cuisine. Samuels has lived in Japan for over a decade and learned Japanese home-style cooking from her neighbors and friends. Her presentation will focus on obento (boxed lunch), which she describes as "Japanese culture in a box."
More Information Coming Soon!
The innovative designers of Kimono textiles in the 20th Century drew inspiration from non-traditional sources: American and European films, fashion, textiles, and interior design provided new motifs and sensibilities. In this JF sponsored even, two accomplished speakers will explore the mid-century modern design trends that were so influential. FIDM instructor, knitwear and commercial interior designer Sharon Cohen will be joined by art historian and educator Dr. Teresa Morales, who focuses on historic domestic interiors and material culture.
Nippon Through My Eyes: Japan as Seen by American Students is an exhibit of photographs taken by 32 American high school students during The Japan Foundation's JET Memorial Invitation Program (JET-MIP) last summer.
CAAM with the support of JF is thrilled to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of that icon of manga, anime, video games and the big screen: Astro Boy. A global sensation, Astro Boy is a touching story of a child’s dream of world peace. To commemorate the Japanese manga created by Osamu Tezuka in 1952 there will be a showing of the Astro Boy Movie at New People on Friday, March 22nd at 5:30PM along with the 60th Anniversary Exhibition at SuperFrog Gallery at 7PM. Make sure to come out for the Astro Boy spotlight, which will display many rare items to help celebrate the anniversary of this global hero, including rare TV episodes, classic manga, video games to play, and of course, Astro Boy, the film!
Come join us at from April 2-6, 2013 in Los Angeles for a concert featuring hapa artists, a comedy night at East West Players, readings by award-winning authors, a historical exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum, film screenings of great documentaries at JFLA, and a 2-day academic conference at USC.
All official score reports for anyone who took the 2012 JLPT in the US was sent out by the end of February. Test takers can also check their scores online, which will be available only until March 15 (Japan Time) so the last full day to check results in the US will be March 13. We will also be deleting all applicant information from Your JLPT Online Account on March 29th so make sure to login and print out any information you wish to keep. The next JLPT in the United States will be in December and we will have more information later this summer.
The final days at the institute were devoted to class time as the participants talked about their homestays and also learned the basics of writing emails in Japanese so they could keep in touch with their host families as well as the friends they made in the Tohoku region. In preparation for the Completion Ceremony, the leaders of each group also worked on their speeches about the trip, which they would give in Japanese.
This is the seventh part of an eight part series that will highlight the experiences of 32 participants of the 2012 JET Memorial Invitational Program. Through this program, participants traveled to Japan in July of 2012 for a two week study tour of the Tohoku area, focusing on the cities of Rikuzentakata and Ishinomaki. These were the cities that Montgomery Dickson and Taylor Anderson were assigned to during their tenure as JET Assistant English Teachers. Sadly, they lost their lives during the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in March, 2011 and this program was created to commemorate their work. Participants took part in exchanges with local elementary, and high school students as well as local community members with the goal of fostering friendship and goodwill between both countries. This month, we will be featuring the essays of the following participants:
For the 2012-2013, we invited 10 additional teaching assistants to various schools around the country as part of the Japanese Language Education Assistant Program (J-LEAP). We have been featuring reports from all the participants describing their experiences as teaching assistants at American high schools. This month, we will introduce two TAs from Year 2:
Over Presidents Day weekend, we invited 20 post-secondary Japanese language program coordinators from all over the country to attend a two day workshop on JF Standards at our information center in Los Angeles. Our Senior Program Officer, Maki Watanabe Isoyama, introduced the concept of JF Standard explaining its basic features, relationships with other standards used in language education in the US, application with online tools and implementation to revise/improve curriculums. This is the third workshop in a series designed to introduce JF Standard to those involved in Japanese language education at all levels in the US.
We are pleased to announce that Tatsuya Kawashima has joined the JFLA family as the new Program Officer for Arts & Culture. Kawashima comes to us with many years in the publishing industry as a writer/editor for the local Japanese language entertainment magazine Lighthouse. We hope you will come out to one of our future events to welcome Kawashima and make his transition to JFLA a smooth and pleasant experience.
5700 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90036
jflainfo@jpf.go.jp
323.761.7510
