Mr. Yo Azama
Teacher of Japanese Language
North Salinas High School
Salinas, California
Yo Azama is a passionate, intelligent, humorous, innovative language teacher and professional speaker. He firmly believes the study of languages and cultures help learners gain new perspectives and provide opportunities to find who they are and their roles in the world. His passion and enthusiasm for sharing the Japanese language and culture with his students encouraged him to work diligently at building the Japanese programs at all high schools in his district. Currently all high schools offer full-time Japanese programs and the number is growing.
His classes are conducted entirely in Japanese. This not only creates a Japan-like environment, but it also fosters students’ curiosity to guess and make meaning of language in situations. Each lesson begins with essential questions students explore such as “Is a Japanese diet really healthier?” or “What are concerns of Japanese teens?” or “What’s the latest trend in fashion and music among Japanese teens?” These essential questions are used as hooks and presented with cultural artifacts such as Japanese recipe book, newspaper articles, or informational graphs. He believes curiosity can take students far.
Lesson outcomes are always practical and purpose driven. He incorporates activities that address various types of learning styles so that all students can learn at their best. It is common to see his students moving around to interview other classmates, collaborating in pairs, or working individually during a lesson. Laughter is constant and a positive atmosphere is perhaps the signature of his classroom. Taking risks and making mistakes in language learning are encouraged. Also common in his classroom is the integration of technology in his lessons. Since many of his students don’t have computers at home, he believes in the importance of providing opportunities to learn and create with technology. As a result, his students have produced creative projects and many opportunities to share them with other language teachers as well as Japanese teachers across the nation.
Yo’s interest with the Japanese language is not limited to the classroom. He continually encourages his students to use their language skills after high school not just to order a Japanese meal in a restaurant or to vacation in Japan; he challenges his students to apply for scholarships that will take them to that county for college and eventually for life. A number of his former students are currently learning and/or working in Japan.
In order to promote students’ success, Yo started the annual Monterey County Japanese Language Speech Contest almost a decade ago. Though this contest mainly benefits the students, Yo has used this contest also to help develop the organizational skills of his many student teachers and new teachers to the district. He encourages them to host the contest at their schools each year while supporting them. This mentorship is what makes the Japanese program in the district a success.
Yo has also developed strong connections with a few high school teachers in Japan to organize an exchange program with North Salinas High School. High school students from Japan have stayed with Salinas host families to experience American culture and Yo’s colleagues and students have enjoyed the rich experience of having a Japanese student live with them for a few days. His Salinas students who have never even travelled outside of their town have raised enough money to visit Japan, stay with host families, and see places and do things they have only studied in books. Studying with Azama Sensei has also inspired female students whose only goals in life were to attend the local junior college, find jobs at the shopping mall, and eventually get married. Discovering life outside the small rural town of Salinas has opened students’ eyes to attending 4-year universities and believing that there may be greener pastures outside Steinbeck country.
Yo has also grown with the students and the program. Since teaching at NSHS, he has introduced the Japanese program in every high school in the district. In addition, this 20-year veteran educator has been the recipient of prestigious honors such as the 2012 ACTFL Language Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Teacher of America Award by Carlston Family Foundation, the Robert J. Ludwig Distinguished Leadership Award, PacTin Grant Recipient, and the Ericia Harden Memorial Teaching Excellence Award just to name a few. His teaching has been featured in the Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 Video Library by WGBH of Boston in 2003 and has been used in Professional Development and method courses.
Yo is passionate and enthusiastic not just about teaching Japanese language, but language in general. He believes “language connects us and as a result it binds us into the global family that we are.” He has given over two hundreds presentations, workshops, seminars, webinars, and keynote addresses on various topics of language learning locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
His academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts from Showa Academia Musicae in Kanagawa Japan, and he received his Master’s Degree in Education from California State University in Monterey Bay, California. He holds a single subject credential from that university’s program as well and has a multiple subject teaching credential from the New College of California.
In addition to his busy full-time teaching career, Yo is a team leader of the Monterey Bay World Language Project and serves as a College Board Advisor for the AP Japanese Language and Culture Development Committee. He also teaches a world language method course at California State University, Monterey Bay. He is widely published and is a highly sought-after professional speaker and seminar leader in the field of language education throughout the US and Canada.