Sayonara to a Novel Path to English?

“Hajimemashite, dozo yoroshiku,” William Adams enunciates for his introductory Japanese language class at Roosevelt High School on Los Angeles’ Eastside. “That basically means, what’s up,” he says, eliciting laughs from the room of freshmen and sophomores.

Then he gives a somewhat philosophical translation, explaining that Japanese culture is very formal: “Let’s begin a new friendship.”

Adams asks the students to repeat the phrase. Hands on hips, he listens. One by one, he calls on them by their last names, with the Japanese honorific added: “Gutierrez-san,” “Ruvalcaba-san.” After a few tries, he’s satisfied with their pronunciation.

Amid the Japanese phrases, the other languages heard in the room are a mixture of Spanish and English. For most of Adams’ students, Spanish is their first language.

For 20 years, Adams has been teaching Japanese at Roosevelt, the largely Latino campus that enrolls many immigrant students. With 300 students over four levels taught by Adams and another teacher, it is the largest high school Japanese program in the state, according to the California Language Teachers Assn.

Yet Adams fears that an upcoming Los Angeles Unified School District policy change will reduce the number of potential students for Japanese classes.

Many people are daunted by Japanese, especially learning to read and write hiragana, katakana and kanji--its three writing systems. But most of Adams’ students say they are not intimidated, partly because of his rigorous but encouraging lessons and the kinship they find Japanese bears to Spanish through similar vowel sounds.

Many in Adams’ classes could have glided through Spanish as an elective, but they have opted to broaden their knowledge. Sophomore Jessica Rocha said Japanese will help her get ahead as a businesswoman someday.

However, some of Adams’ students still struggle with English and, while linguists might suggest those students should focus on learning English, Adams believes studying another language helps.

“Studying Japanese helps clarify English constructs,” he said.

Robert B. Kaplan, emeritus professor of linguistics at USC, disagrees. “The grammar of Japanese is so different from the grammar of English, I can’t imagine how learning Japanese would help you learn English,” he said.

Students struggling with English would be better served learning English before taking on a third language, he said.

And that philosophy is being adopted by L.A. Unified.

Starting next school year, the pool of students for Adams’ classes and all other foreign languages will be reduced under a new policy that will require ninth-graders identified as having problems with English and reading to be in a remedial class for two periods a day. That will leave no time for such electives as Japanese. The district has yet to decide whether the double periods will extend into other grade levels.

Adams estimates that 45 to 50 of his current 60 first-year students would have been affected if the plan had been in place this school year.

He fears that not taking a foreign language will hinder students from getting into college. Cal State schools expect students to take at least one year of foreign language. The UC system looks for three years, as do many private colleges.

Freshman Jennifer Peraza said she feels more comfortable speaking Spanish than English. Her parents are from Guadalajara and speak little English. Yet, she said that “Japanese is my easiest class.”

Adams is afraid that next year’s freshmen may suffer by not starting foreign languages their first year.

Ronnie Ephraim, L.A. Unified’s assistant superintendent of instruction, defended the new remedial policy for students whose grasp of English needs improvement. “If they can’t read a social studies book, having Japanese won’t get them into a UC school either,” she said. And if they improve their English, they can still finish three years of a foreign language, starting as sophomores.

A former English teacher himself, Adams, 59, knows how important it is to improve English literacy, but he learned firsthand the value of a foreign language. A self-described Army brat, Adams lived in Japan when he was 8. He went to high school in Hawaii, living among many Japanese Americans. He majored in English literature at UCLA, and became an English teacher at Roosevelt.

The school was interested in teaching Japanese because of Japan’s influence as an international economic power. Adams started the Japanese class at Roosevelt in 1982 with 15 students, about half of them Japanese Americans.

Roosevelt’s neighborhood, Boyle Heights, had long had a mixed population of Japanese, Jewish and Russian immigrants because it was one of the few areas that didn’t have racial deed restrictions. Little Tokyo is a short jaunt away.

But today, none of the students taught by Adams and Keiko Miya, hired six years ago, is of Japanese ancestry.

Julie Ramirez, a Roosevelt senior, said Japanese comes easily for her. “With French, you have to use a certain accent, but with Japanese, you already have that because of Spanish,” she said.

When Ramirez began studying the language three years ago, friends told her she wouldn’t have much use for it. But she believes having a grasp of three languages will help her as a doctor someday.

Only four other L.A. Unified high schools offer Japanese--Narbonne, Gardena, Venice and Bell.

As at Roosevelt, the majority of the students in Japanese classes at Bell High speak Spanish as their first language.

“Our students are atypical of students studying Japanese,” said Tim Mathos, Bell’s Japanese teacher. “Traditionally, people who take Japanese are straight-A students from wealthy neighborhoods.”

Mathos agreed with Adams that learning a foreign language should be an option for even those freshmen struggling with English. “To teach Japanese, I don’t need their English or Spanish skills,” he said.

However, Gary Idama, Gardena High School’s Japanese language teacher, agrees with the district policy, even though his English-as-a-second-language students do well in his class.

“If their English is not up to par by the time they leave high school, they’re not going to college right away,” Idama said.

Despite that debate, Adams is determined to let students know how foreign languages can help them explore the world beyond Boyle Heights. He and a group of students are in the midst of raising funds for a trip later this year to Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima.

“Gambatte,” he often tells his students in Japanese. “Try hard and hang in there.

“If you’ve got a strong enough will, you can overcome anything.”