One 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate has not only mastered it but is now taking his skills to the language\u2019s country of origin. Newport native Zack Harden<\/a> has accepted an assistant language teaching position through the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program<\/a>, along with fellow 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate Ryan Gomes. The JET program only accepts about 1,000 applicants annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harden\u2019s journey with Japanese began in high school. <\/p>\n\n\n \u201cI was interested in watching things like anime and reading manga,\u201d said Harden. \u201cHowever, I think for me, the thing that really got me interested was listening to a lot of Japanese music and wanting to understand the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Japanese band he fell in love with, Lamp, bolstered his interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had this whole plan about becoming a music educator and I applied to the early childhood education program at 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d says Harden. \u201cBut after getting involved with Japanese and really getting invested in it, I was pulled toward language education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says the Japanese department does an excellent job of educating students as well as providing them with opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities to hone their skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Japanese department is really big into building a community-focused department where students can rely on each other and ask questions, almost be like a little family within the school,\u201d says Harden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using his love of educating as a springboard during his time at 溏心vlog免费B站, Harden would tutor other students. Which he notes will help as he prepares to teach young kids in Japan. He also partnered with a classmate to organize a Japanese game day. It focused on using board games to enhance the learning of Japanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The JET program offers three distinct tracks: Sports Exchange Advisors, who facilitate cross-cultural exchange through sports instruction; Coordinators for International Relations, a role which requires more bureaucratic duties within a specific municipality; and Assistant Language Teachers (ALT) who are often placed in public school systems to assist Japanese Teachers with English during language instruction and lesson planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Harden will become an Assistant Language Teacher. He will be among the first 溏心vlog免费B站 students to teach in Japan. For him it\u2019s the perfect combination of utilizing a language he majored in and his passion for teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019ll be teaching English to elementary school students in Taiki, a town known as the home of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), on the island of Hokkaido. Harden faces the added challenge of teaching his native language through a foreign one. But because teaching has always been a passion, he sees it not as a burden\u2014but as a joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI feel like when you’re in elementary school, you’re excited to go to school, and as the teacher I can have a little bit of fun with them and I can also leave a lasting impression,\u201d says Harden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019ll be a change for the kid from Newport. He says that Taiki is small in comparison to Newport, with a population of only about 6,000. However, he has learned that like the city he calls home, Taiki is a very tight-knit community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harden is planning to teach for at least two years, giving him ample time to become a part of that community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt feels like forever \u2014 but I think two years is going to fly by,\u201d says Harden. \u201cAnd who knows, maybe I’ll fall in love with Taiki, and I’ll want to be there a little longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Sept. 9, 2025 \u2013 Rosetta Stone classifies Japanese as a category 4 language, recognizing it as one of the most challenging languages to learn. According to the company\u2019s estimates, a person needs about 88 weeks to become proficient in the language. While there are only a small number of universities in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":103938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1907,1910,12,1909],"class_list":["post-103937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-academic-excellence","tag-alumni","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-international"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103941,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103937\/revisions\/103941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2025\/09\/1000006066-769x1024.jpg\")