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The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles Newsletter
May, 2018: Breeze Issue #127
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Greeting From The Director
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Greetings!
Lately I have been traveling a lot to attend professional development workshops for Japanese language teachers in various parts of the country. Though every region had its unique trends and issues, one thing I found common to teachers everywhere was how little they are aware of the invaluable skill training they are providing to their students outside the realms of language and culture. For example, business leaders today stress the importance of creating psychologically safe environment at work to let their employees' creativity flourish without fear of failure. But isn't this something language teachers are always mindful of, as learning a foreign language is all about making mistakes? Same thing goes for storytelling. How many of you language teachers have NOT used storytelling as a teaching method before? Yet according to a Forbes article, story-telling will be "
the human edge in an age of robots," which makes it a 'secret weapon' in the 21st century workplace. In a language classroom, these skills are too often taken for granted, so much so that teachers, let alone students, only see them as byproducts of their linguistic and cultural instruction.
What we need now is to try to reframe foreign language education from a number of essential 'soft' skills that are being taught inherently and find ways to systematically replicate them in every classroom. That would not only make the teachers better prepared in advocating the values of their courses within the schools, but more importantly make the students better prepared to face the real world.
Sincerely,
Hideki Hara, Director
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JFLA Lecture Series
Hokusai: The Name that Sold Books Art and Commerce in Nineteenth-century Japan
Tuesday, May 1 @7PM
Free Admission, RSVP Required
In this lecture, Dr Ellis Tinios tells a tale of deceit and low cunning, blatant plagiarism, willful misrepresentation and great art. He tells the story of 'Hokusai'-the hottest brand in 19th-century Japanese publishing.
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Creepy (130mins, 2016)
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Wednesday, May 9 @7:00PM
Free Admission, NO RSVP REQUIRED
Creepy is film adaptation of mystery novel detailing the intertwining double enigmas of an unsolved missing family case and an odd, neighboring family. Directed by world-renowned director Kurosawa Kiyoshi, of the horror film Pulse.
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The Whispering Star (100mins, 2015)
Directed by Sion Sono
Wednesday, May 23 @7:00PM
In Japanese with English subtitles
Free Admission, NO RSVP REQUIRED
A science-fiction drama by internationally popular director, Sion Sono, who brings to life a script he wrote in 1990. An android delivering packages to a decimated human race is depicted in black & white imagery and whispered dialogue. The film won the NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival.
Yoko, an android courier for an interstellar delivery service, travels to desolate planets for the sake of the endangered species known as human beings. One day, Yoko lands on a planet where fragile humans who could die through loud noise dwell.
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Workshop
TA・TA・KE・TA・KE: Let's Play Bamboo Beat!
Tuesday, May 22 @7pm
Free admission, RSVP required
If you have played music before, you might already be familiar with time signatures such as 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4. But have you ever heard of time signatures like 1.618 and 1.732? There is an infinite number of rhythms, including fractional, or non-integer, time signatures which, are neither random nor do they repeat. There are even fractional rhythms which go on and on and take an astronomical amount of years to complete.
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Bamboo
Exhibit: May 27 - September 9
Craft and Folk Art Museum
$12 | free for members
BAMBOO explores the evolution of Japanese bamboo basketry from a purely functional art form into complicated, distinctly Japanese sculptural forms of variable scale. A major selection of historical and contemporary works from the Los Angeles-based Cotsen Collection are central to the exhibition, as well as a large-scale, interactive bamboo installation by Japan-based artist Akio Hizume.
This exhibition is supported by The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles 国際交流基金ロサンゼルス日本文化センター, with additional support from the Pasadena Art Alliance.
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Bilingual Yoga at Lunchtime
Wednesday, May 9
12:30/1:00PM (2 sessions, 20 min/session)
Just Show Up!
Wellness Wednesdays: We offer Wellness programs on Wednesday at lunchtime!
May 9 is Yoga day! In this program, no need to change clothes or use a yoga mat; you will be seated in a chair receiving relaxing instruction from a bilingual (English and Japanese) instructor. Learn simple Japanese phrases during the instruction and stretch your mind as well as your body.
There will be two free sessions beginning at 12:30pm and 1:00pm. No reservation necessary, all are welcome.
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Meditation With Japanese Singing Lin Bowl
Relax With Sound During Lunch
Wednesday, May 23
12:30/1:00PM (2 Sessions, 20 Min/Session)
Just Show Up!
Wellness Wednesdays: We offer Wellness programs at lunchtime!
The Singing Lin Bowl harmoniously combines the healing qualities of the Tibetan singing bowl and its Japanese counterpart, the Lin bowl. Relax and feel your stress dissipate into thin air as the sounds of the singing-Lin bowl lead you into a meditative state.
There is no charge and no reservation required. All are welcome to come, sit, listen, and refresh!
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2018-19 JAPANESE LANGUAGE GRANTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE
We still have grant programs available during our Fiscal Year 2018-19 to support Japanese-Language Education in the United States.
They include the following:
- Learners Event Grant previously known as "Speech Contest Grant" (Deadline: 9/1/2018)
- Teaching Material Purchase Grant (Deadlines: 9/15/2018)
- Japanese-Language Education Project Grant (Deadline: 2 months prior to project start date)
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Japanese Language Education Update #54:
Report from CLTA Conference
This past March, in addition to the AAS/AATJ conferences, we also had the chance to attend the CLTA (California Language Teachers' Association) conference! This year, the conference was held in Ontario, California. Language teachers from various fields gathered to learn new developments in language education and build up their teaching skills for their students.
As we learned from the first session we attended, developments in global competence are ever-growing, and language educators stand at its forefront, providing students with tools to investigate the world, explore different perspectives, share their ideas, and take action. In fact, language teachers today are already doing amazing activities to engage their students with an increasingly interconnected world. For example, I spoke with one French teacher who collaborated with a classroom in Africa via a joint storybuilding project - students from across the globe helped each other create a story using the language they were learning. Needless to say, Japanese classrooms, too, are excellent in offering meaningful activities for their students. One successful lesson plan sensitively approached issues in poverty by investigating and exploring it in Japanese society. Through that, students could relate to issues that affect them; talking about Japan was the same as talking about oneself. Because of its safe space for learning, language classrooms are the ideal environment for students to build the confidence and skills to tackle the world.
At the Special Luncheon, we were happy to congratulate with everyone CLTA/CIEE Student of the Year Julie Ye for her hard work in her Japanese program; Ms. Ye will be participating in the upcoming Global Navigator High School Summer Abroad Program!
Thank you very much for all the organizers at CLTA, and of course thank you to all the wonderful teachers from all the different language fields! As always, if you have a story to tell from your classroom, we are always looking forward to hearing it!
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