Konnichiwa!
Hello, my name is Kana Pierce. I'm 38 years old. I currently live in Rochester, NY. I’m native Japanese, born and raised in Japan, with Japanese nationality, and I am a legal US Resident. I moved here from Japan and started living in the USA since October, 2013.
I have an American husband who used to be the Navy Chief, one dog “Tiffany” and two cats “Tora” and “Cha”.
We have a beautiful garden and we plant so many kinds of vegetables, fruits and flowers every spring. You can never imagine how abundant our harvest is every fall!!! Yes, we are very fortunate to be able to eat what we plant and to be able to appreciate the beauty of nature at home!
Welcome, dog-lovers, cats-lovers and nature-lovers!
I’m sure we can be great friends, through learning Japanese language and exchanging our cultures with each other :) I’m looking forward to seeing you soon!
I am currently a Graduate Student in NYC, attending the Summer Japanese Pedagogy Masters of Arts program at Columbia University. In 2003, I acquired the Bachelor of Arts Degree at Dept. of Literature of Meiji University (Tokyo, JAPAN).
Since I completed the Elementary Japanese Pedagogy and acquired the certificate of the course this summer (2016), I have the knowledge and skill for teaching Japanese language to Japanese learners, especially the beginners.
When it comes to my teaching experience as a career, I’ve taught English to Japanese junior and senior high school students for eight years. Not only did I teach English but I was also engaged with a variety of other academic and nonacademic work such as managing assigned homeroom classes, and processing students’ grades, supporting their future courses, and keeping contact with their parents. I was also in charge of the student council, the volunteering club, an English study abroad group in Canada for a month, and taking care of International students, etc... From these experiences, I’m very confident of having a good relationship with students.
I have other career background before I became an English teacher. I used to work in the Sales and Retail Administration Department selling cable TV service, including phone and Internet for three years. After that, I worked as an International Trade Administrator for one year. From these experiences, I learned to deal with customers and clients both inside and outside of Japan as well.
I currently work as an online translator, translating Japanese articles to English. There, I share my proud Japanese culture, including “manga,” ”anime” or “origami” with the world. My dream is to convey our wonderful Japanese culture to people all over the world by teaching the Japanese language. To make this dream come true, I would like to connect with as many Japanese learners around the world as possible online.
Here are the credits that I earned this summer at Columbia University.
Elementary Japanese Pedagogy
3 M.A. Courses
Teaching Japanese through Literature
Cognitive Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
In Elementary Japanese Pedagogy class, I demonstrated three Peer Teaching Lessons based on the textbook “Genki”, which is an integrated course in elementary Japanese. Therefore, I can teach Japanese through this textbook for the beginners.
I think it is better to teach Japanese language, according to each learner’s needs and objectives. Therefore, I will teach in a different way, depending on what each learner wants to learn, making use of all the skills and knowledge I have acquired (and will acquire) at Columbia University. Of course I can have conversations in various situations if that’s what the learner would like to do.
Most importantly, I really want each learner to enjoy learning Japanese online!
