This award is supported by Georgia Dept. of Education and Japan-America Society of Georgia, and this year’s committee members are Dr. Masato Kikuchi (GATJ President), Aya McDaniel (GATJ Vice President), and Mr. Patrick Wallace (GA DOE). Congratulations to these to brilliant teachers on receiving the award!
K-12 TOTY: Ms. Seiko Onuki (Roswell High School)
College TOTY: Dr. Tomoe Nishio (University of North Georgia)
Here are their bio and success stories!
Ms. Seiko Onuki
She started her career as a Japanese teacher in 2011 at Elkins Pointe Middle School, as an assistant teacher from Japanese Language Education Assistant Program (J-LEAP). Then, she graduated from Master of Arts in Teaching ESOL at Kennesaw State University in 2015. She taught elementary level Japanese at Kennesaw State University (2013-15) and Northwestern Middle School (2015-16). She started her current teaching position at Roswell High School from 2016. At Roswell High School, she has taught Japanese 1, 2, 2 Honors, 3, 3 Honors, 4 Honors, and 5 Honors (elementary to intermediate level). She established a pre-college chapter of Japanese National Honor Society and organized cultural activities and events in the community such as Language Fusion Club, tea ceremony, mochi-pounding, sushi-rolling, origami workshop, and so on. She also collaborates with teachers in the community and in Japan to coordinate field trips and projects, such as pen pal project and story writing contest.
Ms. Onuki has been taking a leadership, working collaborative, and inspiring her students and colleagues. She is an expert in using technology to engage students in and out of the classroom. Her expertise has been invaluable to her students and colleagues as we all transition to online learning during the outbreak of COVID-19. Her students are well trained in how to interface from a distance.
In addition, she continues to demonstrate her leadership in the professional community as a president of the Georgia Association of Teachers of Japanese from 2014-2019. Not only she organized annual events such as Nengajo Contest, Academic Challenge and Speech Contest, she continues to work with her own students at her school to outperform at these events.
Dr. Tomoe Nishio
Dr. Nishio has taught various levels of Japanese-language courses as well as linguistics at several U.S. institutions of higher education since 2005. Her research interests include language learning and technology, intercultural communication, and language learning and culture. In recent years she published journal articles and presented in academic conferences on telecollaboration and/or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL).
Upon her arrival at UNG, Dr. Nishio launched a minor in Japanese and has developed a competitive Japanese program in the region. As part of that endeavor, she created a faculty-led summer study abroad program in Japan, established an exchange program with Nanzan University, has developed new Japanese courses, started and has hosted cultural events on campus, and has worked with local organizations and communities for further development of the program as well as Japanese language teaching and learning in general.