Lockport Township Teacher ‘Brings Japan To The Classroom’

LOCKPORT, IL — When the Japanese program at Lockport Township High School started in 2001, World Languages teacher Karla Button would have had a hard time imagining all the opportunities students would have 20 years later.

Button, an LTHS graduate herself and who is in her 27th year of teaching, started the Japanese program at LTHS.

Since 2017, students have been able to communicate with students at high schools in Japan through Global Classmates, learning from the students themselves about Japanese culture. Students in level 3 and AP Japanese correspond with students from Yoshida High School in Yamanashi, Japan.

Level 2 students also exchange letters with students from Shuyukan High School in Fukuoka, Japan.

This year, the arrival of Eimei Onoda, an assistant teacher from Japan, has brought even more opportunities to the classroom through the J-LEAP program. Onoda will also stay at LTHS next school year.

Button said Onoda brings "authenticity" to the classroom, and has helped students practice calligraphy and held after-school events including a cooking lesson where students cooked Japanese dishes like "okonomiyaki," a sort of pancake dish.

More opportunities are also coming to students, as a trip to Japan is planned in June, Button said. There are also plans in the works with Yamate Gakuin, a co-ed school in Japan, for a homestay exchange. LTHS students would stay two weeks at a home in Japan, and students from a high school in Japan would come stay in Lockport for two weeks, Button said.

This exchange would be the first of its kind for LTHS.

"I was hoping to give them a better chance to experience Japanese culture," Button told Patch. The school, Yamate Gakuin, has run exchanges of this kind for several decades.

World Languages Department Chair Anne Lee praised Button for all she has done for the Japanese program at LTHS.

"[She] brings Japan to the classroom," she said.