The second year of our third Japanese Plus “Tora” cohort ended in early June 2024! In spite of the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic shutdown, we had a very successful year and are proud of those students who remained committed throughout the two-year program.

Funding: Our major funder for this school year’s program remained the United States-Japan Foundation (USJF). We continue to be so grateful for their financial commitment to our program and their belief in the importance of providing accessible opportunities for underserved urban high school students to pursue their passion for Japanese language and culture. We also depended on additional contributions from generous individuals and corporations from our local community and elsewhere.

Meeting Site: The Tora cohort’s first year of Japanese Plus was offered as a hybrid program, with Wednesday meetings online and Saturday meetings in person at Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library. We were thrilled that public heath conditions allowed us to transition back to our traditional two in-person meetings per week at Columbia Heights Education Campus (CHEC) for the second year of the program (SY23-24). We are so grateful to Maria Tukeva, principal, and the great team at CHEC for again providing free space and support to our citywide program.

Program Format: During the 2023-24 school year, Japanese Plus met in-person all Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings (except holidays) for a minimum of five hours per week outside of regular school time. Additional activities beyond these hours were also scheduled – sometimes on a mandatory basis, sometimes optional. Despite the rigor of the schedule, students all preferred the twice-weekly in-person meetings, which allowed for more group interaction and cohesion, more engaging language learning, and more opportunities for enrichment activities and special programs.

Students: Since this was the second year of a two-year sequence, we recruited no new students in fall 2023. Three of the students who completed the Level 1 program were not able to continue with Level 2 because of scheduling and work conflicts. Of the fourteen (14) remaining students (one a student language assistant) who started Year 2 in September 2023, twelve (12) completed the program in June 2024. Five of this year’s students were juniors; the rest were graduating seniors. All expressed the desire and intention to continue somehow with their study of Japanese language and culture and to find a way to visit Japan in their futures.

Staffing: Japanese language teacher duties in SY23-24 were assumed by Chihiro Takahashi, an experienced language teacher from Sendai, Japan, who took over from our Level 1 teachers, Professors Takae Tsujioka and Shoko Hamano. She brought great dedication and energy to our fully in-person program this year. We also benefited tremendously from our volunteer language assistants, Wakaba-san and Nozomi-san, who provided crucial assistance for small group work and for students who needed extra support. We continued to rely on the Marugoto series for our primary textbook.

Final assessments: For our Tora cohort we offered the STAMP test as an optional assessment at the end of our Year 2 program. The STAMP test measures listening, talking, reading, and writing in the target language. Seven of our students chose to take the test, and received composite scores of 3 (Novice-High) to 4.25 (Intermediate-Low), which indicates language proficiency at the Japanese 2 and 3 levels, respectively. We were very pleased with these results. Students also received grades (based on classroom written exams and  performance assessments, classroom participation, blog writing, and special projects), which were transmitted to the students’ home schools for inclusion on their individual transcripts.  

Cultural and College/Career Exposure and Student Blog: Resuming our fully in-person schedule allowed us to increase opportunities through speakers, field trips, cultural experiences, student exchanges, and career and college exposure. Students documented these experiences, along with their reflections on Japanese language learning, in our Student Blog throughout the school year. We highly recommend reading their reflections at www.japaneseplus.org/blog. This is the best way to understand the program and how it works.

Here are some of the year’s special language and cultural program highlights:

Oct 2023:

• Classroom information session at CHEC on Temple University-Japan campus.
  
• “Japanese language only” walk around the circumference of the Tidal Basin. Joined by visiting educators from Japan and journalist Nishant Annu, husband of our Japanese teacher, Takahashi-sensei.

Nov 2023:

• Participation and volunteer assistance at a public “Onigiri Action” workshop, presented by Table for Two, at Marianne’s Café at Martin Luther King Jr Public Library in downtown DC.
  
• Attendance by Chamiya Carnathan and Program Director Sally Schwartz at a traditional Okinawan dance performance, The Heart of Ryukyuan: Capital to Capital, at the Davis Performing Arts Center at Georgetown University, at the special invitation of Katsuyuki Nakazato, Director of the Washington Office of the Okinawa Prefecture Government.

Dec 2023:

• Participation in a special December 7 Pearl Harbor Day Program at the National Museum of the US Navy at the Navy Yard in SE DC. Japanese Plus students presented wreaths (made at an earlier workshop) in remembrance of the lives lost in the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and shared their reflections on the day. They also enjoyed a tour of the museum and visited the site of the 1860 landing of the first diplomatic delegation from Japan to the US. Paul Perry, Director of Education fort the museum, arranged for this special program and led the wreath-making workshop.
  
• Following the Navy Yard program on December 7, students traveled to a Japanese restaurant for lunch and then to the Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC) to view, Go For Broke: Japanese American Soldiers Fighting on Two Fronts: an Exhibit of Eric Saul’s Collection of Photographs.
  
• Attendance by Sally Schwartz and student D’Amonie Armstrong at the presentation ceremony for the conferring of the Foreign Minister’s Commendation on Japanese Plus teacher Professor Shoko Hamano at the Embassy of Japan.

Jan 2024:

• A group of Japanese Plus students attended an Okinawan cultural presentation, Mermaid of the Blue Sea, at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium. Their attendance was thanks to another generous invitation from Katsuyuki Nakazato of the Washington Office of the Okinawa Prefecture Government.

March 2024

• To mark 3/11, students and some program alumni visited the JICC for a photo exhibit, Recapturing Happiness: The Enduring Spirit of Ishinomaki, which beautifully documented the resilience of the human spirit after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Students had the  opportunity to interact with embassy and Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA officials.
  
• Hosted a KAKEHASHI delegation of nine (9) male high school students, winners of the America Bowl competition. In addition to a visit to our Japanese Plus classroom at CHEC, the KAKEHASHI visitors also spent a day at DC International Public Charter School, where three Japanese Plus students attend school. Later, some of our students joined the KAKEHASHI students on the National Mall after school for a visit to the Smithsonian and to play games on the lawn.
  
• A second group of high school students from Iwate Prefecture in the TOMODACHI Amway Japan Foundation Tohoku Future Leader Program visited our students at Martin Luther King, Jr Public Library for a panel discussion with journalists covering Japan, and a language/cultural exchange, which included discussion of local tourism efforts and dancing the Cha Cha Slide. After lunch, students walked together to the White House and then to the Smithsonian Museum of American History for a tour.
  
• Student Margarita Muñoz-Salazar joined Director Sally Schwartz at a special reception at the Embassy of Japan for the Long-Term Education Administration Program (LEAP), where she had a chance to interact with visiting Japanese and American university administrators.

Apr 2024:

• Volunteered at the Sakura Matsuri (Japanese street festival), sponsored by the Japan America Society of Washington DC.

June 2024:

• Attended a special presentation for Japanese Plus students at the Embassy of Japan, where students learned about opportunities to study abroad in Japan, scholarships, as well as the JET program. They also enjoyed a tour of the building and the embassy’s traditional Ippakutei teahouse.

Final Presentation: We formally concluded the two-year Japanese Plus (Tora cohort) program at a final presentation for family members and program supporters on May 22, 5:00-7:30 pm at the historic Sumner School in downtown DC. The program included:

• Student-created Japanese language skits.
• Videotaped messages from three alumni currently studying and working in Japan: Jarid Shields (JET in Mie Prefecture), Bryson Torgovitsky (PhD student at University of Tohoku), and Aeris Golden-Thompson (undergraduate at International Christian University or ICU).
• Remarks from Taichi Kaneshiro, Education Counselor at the Embassy of Japan.
• Special recognition for alumni Kharan Pierce (accepted into the JET program) and Jonah Conyers-Nguyen (recipient of both the Toshizo Watanabe Scholarship and Bridging Scholarship to support his continuing undergraduate study at Temple University-Tokyo).
• It was announced that Aeris Golden-Thompson also received a second Watanabe Scholarship for her studies at ICU.