Hori sensei, a 2016 Cheng & Tsui Professional Development Grant recipient, shares her teaching expertise

From 2016 Cheng & Tsui Professional Development Grant Recipient - Yoko Hori sensei, University of Kansas

    Thanks to the generous support of Cheng & Tsui and the Professional Development Committee of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ), I was able to attend and present at the 2016 Foreign Language Association of Missouri and Kansas World Language Association Joint Conference in October.

     At the conference, my former colleagues at William Jewell College and I were able to co-present simple solutions to common novice-level problems in French, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. Teaching at a small private college in the Midwest where I was the only native speaker of Japanese, one of the major challenges was the lack of opportunity in which students could use Japanese with a native Japanese speaker outside of the classroom. To improve the situation, we began a Twitter activity in which students could express their thoughts and feelings in Japanese anytime and tweet to me and other students outside of a classroom. The activity not only gave students an opportunity to have an authentic social communication, but also improved the face-to-face interactions between teachers and students. At the conference, I was able to share the result of the activity and  receive feedbacks from other language teachers, which was the most encouraging and joyful experience of the conference.

     Another joy of attending the conference was that I was able to meet and talk to many local teachers who are engaged with foreign language teaching. Through many discussions with those teachers, I was able to learn  many skills and knowledge, such as cooperative learning strategies and the use of the latest technologies for language learning. 
 
     My experience at the conference was truly encouraging, and it motivates me to be a better foreign language teacher in the future, and I really appreciate the support of the committee. 

                                                                                                                                               -- Yoko Hori

Yoko Hori Biographical Information:
 
Yoko Hori sensei is from Ibaraki prefecture, Japan and currently a M.A. students at the University of Kansas with interests in the role of jogakusei in the naturalist literature during the Meiji period. She also works as a graduate teaching assistant at the university. 

Prior to enrolling at the University of Kansas she worked for two years as a Japanese instructor at William Jewell College, MO through ALLEX program where she developed a passion for language teaching.