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JAPANESE LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP
"AURORA" FOUNDATION Announces the 5th Annual Scholarship
Winners
January 27, 2004
For Immediate Release
Press contact: Aurora Foundation
Tel: (323) 466-1237
Fax: (323) 464-8048
Los Angeles - The Japanese Language
Scholarship "AURORA" Foundation is pleased to announce
their fifth scholarship winners, Mr. Matthew W. Bacon-Brenes
and Ms. Lisa Berkson. The primary goal of the Aurora Foundation
is to assist United States citizens, who are either Japanese
language teachers or graduate students of Japanese language education,
to experience living in Japan and have the opportunity to participate
in various educational programs during their stay to further
their understanding of the Japanese language and culture. Two
winners receive a $3,000 scholarship and roundtrip air tickets
from the USA to Japan (coach class).
To welcome the two recipients of the JLSF scholarships, the Aurora
Foundation is holding the Aurora Foundation Award Dinner on Friday,
September 17, 2004 at the New Otani Hotel & Garden. To show
her support of the goals of the Aurora Foundation, Tokiko Kato,
Japan's renowned singer and songwriter will attend as a special
guest. There will also be a benefit auction (live & silent)
which is a fundraising event for the Aurora Foundation (EIN:
31-1639219).
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Matthew W. Bacon-Brenes has been a teacher
for fourteen years. His first teaching job was in a prefectural
high school in Saitama, Japan. As a Japan Exchange Teacher, Matthew
spent three years helping students and teachers with communicative
English language instruction and American cultural studies. In
addition, he had the great fortune of living with a host family
for all three years. Matthew returned to the U.S. in 1992 and
taught Japanese language and culture to high school students
for ten years. He also conducted a number of student exchange
trips to Toyama, |
| Japan.
This last year he took a new position as the 8th grade Japanese
and social studies instructor in the Japanese Magnet Program
(JMP) in Portland, Oregon. At home Matthew enjoys spending most
of his time with his wife, Kristin, and their two young children,
Claire (5) and Samuel (1). He also likes to play soccer, dig
in the garden and backpack. On his JLSF trip, he plans to attend
an intensive residential Japanese language institute in Osaka,
Japan and will collect materials to enhance his teaching of language
arts and social studies in Japanese in the JMP. |
| Lisa Berkson first traveled to Japan
as a Rotary Club exchange student in high school. Since then,
she has been involved with Japanese language and culture in various
ways, including teaching English in Japan, teaching Japanese
in the U.S., interpreting, technical translating, and working
as a tour guide in California. She currently lives in Bloomington,
Indiana, with her husband Steve, a professor of classical Chinese
at Indiana University, her two sons Nathaniel (a freshman at
Stanford University) and Zack (an 8th grader), and her cat, Lily.
During the school year she is the Japanese language teacher at
Warren Central High School in Indianapolis. During the summer,
she |
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| loves
to travel to Asia, camp in Wyoming, and visit family in California.
During her JLSF trip to Japan, she plans to create videotaped
dialogues of native Japanese speakers, to provide American students
immediate visual cultural reinforcement. |
Dr. Akiko Agishi, Founder & President of the Aurora Foundation,
is a former Fulbright scholar and graduate of UCLA and is happy
to have the opportunity to share her dream with young educators.
"The youth of today remain our hope for tomorrow and I believe
we must all do our part to help prepare them."
For more information, including
sponsorship, please contact the Aurora Foundation at (323) 466-1237
or by e-mail at AuroraFoundation@usa.net. Please check the JLSF
website at www.jlsf-aurora.org.
4th
annual scholarship winners
3rd
annual scholarship winners
2nd
annual scholarship winners
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