The Sasakawa Fellowship Fund offers Short Term Fellowships to Japan for Japanese Language or Japanese Studies teachers, or for others in a position to share their findings with these teachers. The amount of the award will be $5,000. Half will be paid soon after notification of the success of an application. The second half will be paid on receipt of evidence that the fellowship holder has taken steps to share their findings or resources with the Japanese language teaching community. Applicants are responsible for making their own arrangements for the visit. Contact Naomi Collins before commencing your application procedure, to check on the current status of the Short Term Fellowships. Their availability may vary from year to year.
Following is a list of Short Term Fellowships that have been approved since the project was introduced in 2003:
2003 Janis Maidment: Teaching Resources up to Year 11
In 2003, Janis Maidment worked with Jenny Short at the Japanese Language
Centre in Urawa, creating web pages of activities to accompany the
materials Jenny was writing for beginners to Year 11 students of
Japanese. These activities are available in the Language Revision page
of the NZAJLT website (link here). As well as developing the activities
herself, Janis was responsible for taking photos to accompany the
material.
2003 Chris Morris, Principal of Chartwell School
Chris Morris, then Principal of Chartwell School in Wellington, the
world’s only Japanese Joint-venture school, received a Short Term
Fellowship for a study tour to Japan in September-October 2003. The
purpose of his trip was to gain a better understanding of the Japanese
education system in order to be able to cater more effectively for the
Japanese national students at his own school. He was committed also to
passing on his findings to other non Japanese staff at Chartwell for the
same reason and to fellow principals.
2004 Glenda Koefoed: Year 11 and 12 Kanji in situ.
In 2004, Glenda Koefoed photographed the kanji which appear in the NZQA
prescription lists relating to Years 11 and 12 of ‘Japanese in NZ
curriculum’ and produced from these a set of power point presentations
to illustrate real life contexts for these kanji. These, and an
accompanying set of activity worksheets, are available to teachers
by sending a CD in a postage-paid envelope to Glenda at:
Glenda Koefoed
Facilitator, Learning Languages
Faculty of Education
The University of Auckland
They can be used either as an independent revision tool for individual
students or a resource for use with classes.
2005 Hay Family: Kiwi kids in Japan.
The Hay family (Dad, Mum and two teenagers) packed up their house in
Keri Keri and travelled to Japan for a year in 2005/2006. They had
little prior experience of or preconceptions about Japan and wanted to
expose themselves to a completely different culture and lifestyle for a
year. They planned to set up an interactive website, on which the two
children would post their observations as ‘Kiwi Kids in Japan’ and
invite feedback and discussion via email from invited classes in New
Zealand. In the event it proved impossible to set up the website in the
time frame proposed, and instead, on their return, the children gave
power point presentations and performed a dance they had learnt, to 10
different schools in the Keri Keri area. Their power point had many
fascinating photos showing aspects of Japanese way of living that had
struck them as very different to the Kiwi way that had been for them the
‘norm’ until that year. This may be of
interest to Social Studies teachers teaching a unit on Japan, as well as
Japanese language teachers. To view a shortened version of their
PowerPoint in PDF please click
here (1.38Mb).
2006 Aukje Both: Katakana in Context resource
Aukje Both spent time in Japan in 2006 taking photos of katakana in situ
which she the used to produce the resource ‘katakana in context’, an
interactive CDROM for use in the classroom. This resource is available
to teachers through the NZAJLT website. Aukje has presented
about her resource at the Sasakawa Conference 2007 in Christchurch and
the CASTEL (Computer assisted Learning) Conference in Hawaii in July
2007. At both conferences Aukje presented a very compelling argument for
teaching katakana before hiragana. A short description of the paper she
presented at the Hawaii conference, with photos, is available here.
2008 Kosaku Kimura and Gene Devonshire: Gene's Trip to Japan DVD
In 2008 Kosaku Kimura from Freyberg High School travelled to Japan on a Short Term Fellowship, together with a former student, Gene Devonshire, specifically to film clips for what turned into a fabulous resource 'Gene's Trip to Japan'. This DVD comes with a guide for teachers and is specifically designed to promote an Intercultural Language Learning approach to Japanese. The first 100 copies were made available free to teachers. Due to high demand, we organised a re-run, and these can be purchased for $15. See here for more info on this resource and how teachers can get hold of it.
2009 Michelle Miles: Wai Taiko drummer
In 2009 Michelle Miles, then leader of the Wai Taiko drum group in Hamilton spent time in Japan, at a Taiko camp and in workshops with professional Taiko drummers, then on her return to New Zealand, ran Taiko workshops for New Zealand teachers. It's difficult to imagine a more dramatic and unforgettable advertisement for Japan and Japanese. Here's the link to the Wai Taiko website, with video footage of the group performing, and information about their workshops.
2010 Rachael Elliot: Wai Taiko drummer 'If You Can Play It, You Can Say It' resource
Wai Taiki Drummer In August 2010, another Wai Taiko drummer and teacher of Japanese, Rachael Elliot travelled to Japan for similar workshops. As part of her requirements for the fellowship, Rachael will run "If you can play it, you can say it" workshops for interested schools, and will develop a written unit plan on how to use taiko drumming in the classroom (with or without the drums themselves!) and how it can be tied into the curriculum at various levels. Watch this space. When available, both the workshop and resource will be advertised on NZJNET and on this site.
Further information and the application form for Short Term Fellowships are available here