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JAPANESE LANGUAGE
SCHOLARSHIP "AURORA" FOUNDATION Announces the 2010
Annual Scholarship Winners
March 1, 2010 (Updated March 2011)
For Immediate Release
Press contact: Aurora Foundation
Tel: (323) 882-6545
Fax: (323) 969-9425
Los Angeles - The Aurora Japanese
Language Scholarship Foundation is pleased to announce their
ninth scholarship winners, Mr. Noah
Miles and Mr. Jason M. Packman.
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).
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Noah Miles
As a teenager in Kansas City, Noah became fascinated with Japanese
culture because of the unique history and style of Buddhism in
Japan. Noah earned a B.A. in Japanese Language at the University
of Iowa in 2005. For his undergraduate honor’s thesis, Noah
received a Freeman Foundation Research Grant to study the unique
situation of American Baseball players playing in Japan, at the
sports archive in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Tokyo. In 2007,
he earned an M.A. from the University of Iowa. For this degree,
he studied for one summer in Yokohama at the Inter-University
Center for Japanese Language Studies. While in Iowa, Noah became
acquainted with the poet Yoshimasu Gozo through the University
of Iowa’s International Writing Program and he wrote a series
of translations of Gozo’s poetry about America for this
thesis. |
Noah has started two Japanese language programs in East Texas
Since 2007, the first at the University of Texas at Tyler, and
the second at Tyler Junior College. He has led students to Japan
on two travel study courses, started an anime club, and is currently
teaching first and second year Japanese. With the Japanese Language
Scholarship, Noah will travel to Akita University in Tohoku in
order to solidify a study abroad agreement with UT Tyler. He
will meet with faculty, create promotional material, and experience
the culture of Northern Japan. For Tyler Junior College, Noah
will meet with representatives from two Japanese Junior Colleges
in Tyler’s sister city, Yachiyo, in Chiba-ken, to encourage
Japanese students to study abroad in East Texas.
Jason
Packman
Jason Packman has been involved in promoting US-Japan relations
through language education throughout his adult life. He taught
English in elementary and junior high schools in Ojiya, Niigata
as a participant on the JET program. He then spent four years
teaching English at elementary schools in Tokyo. He has also
spent time as the Education Intern at the Japan Society at San
Diego and Tijuana, where he worked on promoting Japanese language
programs in San Diego. |
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Jason first went to Japan in 1995 as a participant in a study
abroad program though UC Davis held at Ryukoku University in
Kyoto. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies
with a specialization in Japan from UCLA. and a Master's degree
in Pacific International Affairs, with a specialization in Japan
and Non Profit Management and International Education from the
School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San
Diego. He is currently living in San Diego, where he is pursuing
a Master of Arts in Linguistics, specializing in Applied Linguistics,
at San Diego State University, where he also teaches a freshman
composition class for international students.
With his JLSF scholarship, Jason
plans to study Japanese as a Second Language (JSL) programs in
Yokohama. Jason hopes to better understand the specific kind
of language people living in Japan feel is neccessary to learn
in a classroom environment through his observations of these
classes and interactions with their students and teachers. He
also wants to better understand how non-linguistic forms of communication
are taught in JSL classrooms, since mastering these forms of
communication are especially important for the Japanese language
learner who hopes to live in Japan. He hopes that this will help
teachers and students in the United States to achieve their goals
to teach and acquire strong and useful communicative skills in
Japanese. San Diego and Yokohama are also sister cities, and
he hopes his study will contribute to strengthening connections
between the two cities in general, and the Japanese as a Second/Foreign
Language education communities in particular.
To welcome the two recipients
of the JLSF scholarships, the Aurora Foundation is holding the
Aurora Foundation Benefit Dinner & Auction in Los Angeles
in October, 2010. There will also be a benefit auction (live
& silent) which is a fundraising event for the Aurora Foundation
(EIN: 31-1639219).
For more information, including
sponsorship, please contact the Aurora Foundation at (323) 882-6545
or by e-mail at AuroraFoundation@usa.net. Please check the JLSF
website at www.jlsf-aurora.org.
8th annual scholarship winners (2009)
7th annual
scholarship winners (2006)
6th annual
scholarship winners (2005)
5th
annual scholarship winners (2004)
4th
annual scholarship winners (2003)
3rd
annual scholarship winners (2002)
2nd
annual scholarship winners (2001)
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