Ms. Sandra Garcia

Teacher of Japanese Language Forest Grove High School
Forest Grove, Oregon

Since 1989 Sandra Garcia has been teaching Japanese at Forest Grove High School; currently there are five levels. She started a program at the local middle school in 1995 and is also an adjunct at Pacific University.

At nine years old Sandy fell in love with Japan; a missionary had shared experiences about this fascinating country. It was then, according to her mother, she decided she would go to Japan as an exchange student. In high school Sandy was an exchange student, but went to Tehuacan, Mexico. Later, while attending Oregon State University she spent six months at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. It was not until the age of twenty-three that her dream would become reality; she spent one year at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. S he decided to stay in Japan and studied an additional year at Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin before teaching Spanish and Earth Science at Christian Academy (Tokyo) for four years.

Sandy actually began teaching Japanese in the fall of 1987. While attending a workshop on Japanese pedagogy, Susan Cabello, then head of the World Language Department at Pacific University, handed her an application to teach the following semester. Sandy taught that entire year, and later started working at the High School.

In the classroom Sandy tries to find updated methods to help her students learn Japanese. She experiments with new teaching techniques, materials, and technology.

Every other year Sandy leads a group of high school students to Japan. The group attends a high school in Osaka as well as visiting Hiroshima before traveling to Forest Grove’s sister city, Nyuzen, Toyama, and Tokyo.

Besides working in the classroom, Sandy is president of the Sister City Association where she helps with visiting delegations. She helped organize the local Benkyoukai, a Japanese teacher study group in 1992. She has had the opportunity to learn and share with a great group of teachers. She is past-president of the Japanese Teacher’s Association in Oregon (ATJO) and past-president of COFLT (Oregon’s association for language teaching). Sandy is also past-treasurer of NCJLT (National Council of Japanese Language Teachers). Currently she is working on state standards in Oregon and with the College Board on the AP Japanese exam. She also does presentations at various conferences.