Carrollton Japanese teacher receives national award

There were only 25 students when Kazuko “Kay” Sanada first started teaching Japanese at Newman Smith High School in 1996. Almost 13 years later, Sanada teaches 130 students at both Smith and Creekview High Schools. She teaches six classes and works nearly 70 hours a week, including teaching mathematics to Japanese students every Saturday in Carrollton for the past 24 years.

Sanada’s efforts have earned her recognition as she was recently named the winner of the 2008 Teacher Award for the K-12 Level by the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers. Sanada will receive the award Nov. 21 at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages 2008 Annual Convention and World Languages Expo in Orlando, Fla. About three years ago she won Teacher of the Year from the Texas Foreign Language Association

“My 13 years of effort has paid off,” she said about what the award means to her.

Sanada, who was born and raised in Tokyo, started at Newman Smith in 1996 after an administrator came to the Japanese school looking for someone to teach Japanese to high school students. She then got her certification and has been teaching since.

Sanada describes her teaching style as “relaxing.”

“Everybody’s at the starting line,” she said. “I just push them. Each student can set their own goal.”

Sanada said there are a few reasons why students sign up for Japanese.

“Most of them want to watch anime,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the No. 1 interest.”

The uniqueness of the language is another.

“Spanish is very common,” she said. “They think it’s cool to keep a secret in a foreign language no one else can understand.”

Like many of Sanada’s students, Mari Pena was first interested in learning Japanese because of anime, but says she now wants to be a Japanese fashion designer.

“I like the way she teaches because she’s really honest,” Pena said. “She doesn’t sugarcoat things.”

Sanada likes to mesh both language and culture in her lessons. She teaches students how to make sushi, takes them on field trips to Japanese restaurants, invites native speakers to class and teaches Yosakoi, a Japanese style of dancing. Every year, one Creekview and one Newman Smith student are selected to take a 19-day trip to Japan, where they spend eight days in a Japanese high school and the rest of the time traveling the country. Last year, Sanada also took 30 students to Japan for a dance competition.

While the Japanese language is a difficult one to learn, Sanada said the students are “like a sponge.” She usually starts students off with speaking and reading, then teaches writing gradually because it is the most difficult.

Freshman Alix Osborn already knew a little Japanese when she enrolled in Sanada’s class this year and hasn’t had any trouble picking it up so far.

“It’s really fun. I like it,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite classes. Ms. Sanada is a really good teacher.”

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