On September 23rd, 2024, 32 Clarkstown high school students met with 34 Japanese high school students from Sapporo Kiyota High School as a part of the Global Classmate program. Students met in small groups of one or two students from each respective school to have conversations in both Japanese and English. High school students were able to take the language skills from the classroom and put them to use with peers from the other side of the world.

Lead by globally-minded Japanese teachers Ms. Uchiyama and Ms. Saito, Clarkstown High School’s juniors have been participating in the Global Classmates for the last eight years with partner schools from Fukushima, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Gifu, Saga, Yamagata, Tokyo, and now Sapporo in Hokkaido this year. Clarkstown has been able to connect with so many Japanese high schools through the Global Classmates program (https://kacultures.org/en/).

During the zoom meeting, students had breakout rooms rotating to talk to different people. Sophomores and seniors taking Japanese as a world language were also able to participate in this exchange experience. Clarkstown High Schools are planning to have two more Zoom meetings with Sapporo Kiyota High School. 

The global interaction does not end there; each week juniors write messages in both English and Japanese, with photos and videos to practice reading and writing. Students are able to communicate with peers from the opposite side of the world. Every other week, there are different topics such as self-introduction, school life, holidays and festivals, favorite foods, music, traveling, my bucket list, and many more. The weekly conversation goes back and forth between the months of September and February. 

Clarkstown North Junior John Truong shares his experiences with the exchange experience: 

“At times it was pretty awkward, but the Japanese students are nice and kind. They were very welcoming even with the language barrier. We were able to communicate with positive gestures helping me understand” (John Truong, class of 2026). 

Additionally, Clarkstown sophomores and seniors are participating in another exchange program called Global Talk (https://globaltalk-knox.com/). Global Talk is similar to Global Classmates. Instead of partnering with only one school in Japan, the program is done with Japanese students from all over the country. Every week, students exchange video comments on Voicethread to practice listening and speaking skills with native speakers. Sophomores are communicating with 10th and 11th graders in Japan, while seniors are communicating with nine college freshmen. The Japanese students are all motivated to learn English while Clarkstown students are learning Japanese with them. This new program helps students have first hand experience speaking and listening to actual Japanese speakers instead of programmed voices heard during tests and assessments.  We are fortunate to be able to participate in the Global Classmates and Global Talk programs which emphasize one of our school missions: “Global Competence.”