kodomo No Ie

Kiwako Ozeki – Class I

El Camino College: Child Development major

My class learns age-appropriate knowledge in Japanese and aims at expressing such knowledge in Japanese. It should help the students acquire the basic Japanese skills.

Takakura – Class II

Graduated from Toyo Women's College

Children are full of curiosity, and ready to absorb anything.

I will do my best to enhance their interest in Japanese and create a fun environment for them to learn Japanese.

Kazuko Umehata, Director – Class III

Graduated from Shoei Junior College, Early Child Education/Care major

After I graduated from college, I started working as a Japanese preschool teacher and kept the career for a long time. I moved to the U.S. and established Kodomo No Ie because I missed working with children. The fact that I had seen many graduates lose Japanese ability led me to open Saturday Japanese classes.

Children should develop good command of Japanese to the extent that they can use it in daily life. I'm teaching basic Japanese skills substantially so that students will become perfect bilinguals as adults. I'm providing different types of games and play so the knowledge they earn will be burned in their mind with fun memories.

Florece - JFL Class

California State of University, Long Beach, B.A. Linguistics

I have studied in New Zealand while in high school and also have studied in England during college and then have moved to the US.

I have personally experienced that language learning is most effective when you learn its history and culture. There is no one single answer to a language question. I feel it is important to always be open-minded. I’d like my class to be able to enjoy leaning a language that is “usable”.

Yuko Yamada – A-1 Class

Daito Bunka University: Elementary Education major; acquired teaching certificate through Ministry of Education California State University, San Bernardino: Completed a Pedagogy program

I teach with passion under the philosophy of KNI. Meanwhile, I keep improving my skills by studying, planning and making presentations of enjoyable and interesting classes.

Oota - A-2 Class

Sophia University

I have experienced working in editing children’s books after graduating from college and came to US after marriage. I have taught Language at Asahi Gakuen for quite some time.
My two sons have both gone through Asahi and grew up in a dual language environment. Now that they have grown, they seem to appreciate the benefits of being able to understand both Japanese and English. I would like to have my students at Kodomo-no-Ie be able to enjoy that environment and feel the fun.

Siegel Siegel – A-3 Class

Kobe College (B.A.): English literature and linguistics major; acquired Teaching Certificate of English language on 7-12 grades in Japan.

East Asian Studies at University of Arizona (M.A.): Japanese pedagogy major Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies at University of Arizona (Ph,D. program, ABD): Applied Linguistics major; interested in heritage language education, bilingual education, multicultural education, social contexts in Education etc.

I hope students become motivated to be active learners of Japanese language and culture in my classroom. This class provides interdisciplinary activities and materials suited for students' Japanese proficiency level and relevant to their daily lives.

Chieko Sakamoto – A-4 Class

Tokyo Women's Cultural College: International Relations major

I started working for Asahi Gakuen when my son was admitted to the school. After I taught the Junior-level Class for five years, I taught Sixth grade as well as Japanese. I was promoted to Vice Principal and taught Japanese Cultural Studies (Himawari no Sogo Gakushu) for two years.

I believe that if your primary language is well established, your secondary language should also be as good. I try to teach students to make them feel, in the future, that they are glad they have learned Japanese.