Cal State Long Beach Japanese Professor Masako Douglas admits to taking a page from another highly touted teacher, and it seems to be working for her.
Douglas, who said she tries to base her teaching style off of Confucius’ saying, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand,” was recently awarded the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) Teacher Award for 2012.
“I feel so privileged,” Douglas said. “It is an honor. I just appreciate my colleagues because this is a joint effort to make instruction better here and nationwide.”
Her colleague, Kiyomi Chinen, described Douglas as perfect in the areas of teaching, research and community service. Douglas teaches several Japanese courses, and her goal is to help students who grew up in a home that spoke Japanese, according to Chinen, an assistant Asian and American studies professor at CSULB. For her upper division courses, Douglas accommodates each student and tries to give them individual help.
Douglas focuses her research on Japanese heritage language learning and incorporates what she learns into her courses, according to Chinen. She has also published a Japanese heritage language textbook.
Douglas, who tries to involve her students as much as she can by promoting experiential or hands-on learning, said her favorite part of her job is watching her students progress and develop their Japanese.
“They start from zero at the beginning of the semester, but now they can go to the Japanese store and buy something,” Douglas said about her Japanese 101 class.
Douglas is also very active in helping Japanese Saturday schools, like the Orange County Japanese School, Chinen said. She observes the classes almost every week and gives suggestions on how to improve the curriculum and instruction methods.
Douglas’ award was presented at the AATJ luncheon on Saturday. The luncheon was part of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Convention and World Languages Expo in Philadelphia.
According to its website, AATJ is an international organization of teachers, scholars and students of Japanese language, literature and linguistics. AATJ works to promote the study of the Japanese language at all levels of instruction. The organization has more than 1,400 members.
Douglas earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kobe City University of Foreign Studies in Japan. She then earned another master’s degree from Australian National University and a doctorate from University of Southern California in 1992.
