Everett High School

Marie Arao

Courtney Griggs

Everett High School

• Visual & Performing Arts Magnet Academy

• Located in Lansing

• Mascot: Viking

• Colors: Red, White, Light Blue

Atmosphere

• Lots of art work in all areas• No carpet in halls, just in classrooms• Brick building, huge windows• Lots of lockers in halls• 3 floors

Counseling/FL Program

• Two years of foreign language learning can be counted toward humanities credit, which is required for graduation.

• Foreign language learning at Everett HS is recommended if one wishes to take and/or continue to study a foreign language in college.

• Administrators are supportive of the foreign languages program at Everett HS.

• Japanese and Spanish are currently offered at Everett HS.

• The Lansing school district supports the Japanese program and is planning on expanding their program and having immersion classes at the elementary school level.

Student Body

• Total Students: 1759• 9th grade: 679

10th grade: 417

11th grade: 350

12th grade: 313• Male: 49%

Female: 51%

Ethnic Make-up

46%

33%

14%

6% 1%

African American

White

Hispanic

Asian

American Indian

Economic Status

Eligible for Free Lunch

Eligible for Reduced Lunch

42% 9%

Classroom

• Comfortable classroom

• Seats in rows– 2 desks side by side

• Lots of Japanese decorations

• Shelf full of Japanese books

• Uses white board

Classroom

• Shelf of Japanese magazines

• Writing charts displayed at the front of class

• Not a lot of technology; has a laptop for herself

Mentor Teacher

• Ms. Dawn Stark• She became a Japanese teacher in a hope of educating

students about Japanese culture.• She has been to Japan four or five times in total.• She lived in Otsu, Shiga for 10 months through Lansing

Community College.• She is very open for adapting and utilizing new

methods/techniques. Among all, she particularly thinks that content-based instruction is very effective. She also incorporates different methods, games, drawing, visuals, and activities that are enjoyable for her students.

• For the reason being that she herself is a visual learner, she attempts to incorporate visuals in addition to having her students listen to what she says.

Mentor Teacher Cont.• In her classroom, writing, especially kanji (one of the

Japanese alphabets borrowed from Chinese and considered the hardest of the three), is most emphasized out of other three skills because this is the skill mostly emphasized in college. In this respect, speaking is least emphasized for the difficulty to have her students speak.

• She says that it is hard to change one’s teaching style when he/she has his/her own pattern. As for her teaching style, she has incorporated new methods/techniques as she learned.

• Similarly, she feels that she has become more calm in her classroom as she had more experience with teaching and gained more respect from her students. In the same vain, she has a better understanding of various situations even when her students have problems. She has also learned not to take her students’ problems too personally in that there are times that she has to let them deal with their problems on their own.