It is a great honor to be asked to share a counselor’s perspective on how to build a good relationship among world language teachers and counselors and principals. Hopefully I have some insights into these relationships, having been a counselor for over 35 years and having been married to a high school Japanese teacher for over 30 years! I have profound respect for teachers and understand how hard they work under difficult conditions. Most counselors have been teachers; never doubt we know you and your job. As a rule counselors and administrators expect you to be a great teacher; hard-working and loving toward your students. We want to see you passionate about your mission to impart the language and culture of Japan to our students. While recognizing that, as coworkers in an educational institution, you can expect to be regarded with esteem and a positive perception, you definitely build and improve your relation with both counselors and administrators.

To begin with, we all must have a clear understanding of our various roles and how they work in concert or are at times come into conflict. You know your job is to provide students with a positive and enriching environment in which to learn the Japanese language. The principal sets the educational and disciplinary tone for the school; he/she makes decisions that have an enormous impact on your performance as a teacher such as your schedule, class size, room assignment and budget. The counselor's role is to guide students successfully through the educational institution and is a student’s advocates in that process. As advocates of students, counselors may come in conflict with teachers especially when you are involved in a conflict with a student over such things as grades or placement. Understanding this, you can avoid being defensive and try to take a problem solving position. A conflict I see often is whether a student with a D or F can continue in your class for the second semester of a school year. It may seem obvious to you that a failing student should or cannot continue for the second semester, but the counselor has to consider the desire of the student or parent to continue in the course. Also the principal and counselor have to take into account the availability of room in other classes for the student you are asking to leave. Remember math, science, social studies and English teachers rarely get to say failing students are not welcomed back into the second semester. A similar problem arises over next year’s placement of students with D’s; unless clear and consistent school policies are in place, conflict between you and your counselor may result.

Counselors and administrators, like you, are busy folks and probably don’t have much time to spend in your classroom to learn about your program. It is important to realize that you have more need for administrators and counselors to remedy their deficit in knowledge and understanding of you and your program than they have. I suggest that you try to find reasons to invite a counselor or administrator into your room to see all the wonderful things you do and to witness the learning evident in your students. Think about using them as judges in speech or cooking contests. Many Japanese teachers have food demonstrations or lessons and sharing food is a wonderful way to entice visitors to your classroom. You can also send counselors information regarding your field trips, exchange programs, speech or art contests that your students participate in. All of the cultural activities you have in support of learning the culture of Japan are opportunities to include counselors and administrators. If you have a New Year’s greeting card lesson, have your students send one to their other teachers and to the administrators and counselors; students can really impress the adults in your building with their unique learning.

Counselors and administrators generally have weekly meetings; make sure you get asked to attend one to discuss your program. You could share your goal of building a quality program. There are many topics you could discuss around your curriculum or your alignment with state and national standards. Counselors would be especially interested in the success of your students’ transition to college study of Japanese. Another topic of importance could be your use of the Internet in communicating with students and parents.

In meeting directly with counselors you could discuss the perception on the part of counselors that Japanese is a much more difficult language to learn that the other languages typically offered in high schools. This can be an issue if counselors are discouraging some students from taking Japanese. Frankly I think counselors make judgments about the level of difficulty of learning Japanese from how you compare to other teachers in your building; based on your grades, student retention rates, and a lot from what students say how hard or easy they see your class. However because of the difference Japanese is from English and the necessity to learn a new writing system, it may be intuitive to think Japanese is a difficult language to study. You need to be prepared to answer the question “Is Japanese a more difficult language to learn than other world languages taught in high school?” You could provide a counter argument to this idea with information available on the website about.com/ Japanese language. I generally say that it may take longer to master the Japanese language but the process of learning is not more difficult than French, Spanish or German.


Counselors are generally involved in registering students for next year’s classes and they are involved in helping students make decisions on classes needed for college admissions. Having a middle school Japanese program is a great advantage to having a strong high school program. However, if that is not the case in your district, you can ask to participate in eighth-grade parent nights or you could create flyers or brochures for counselors to distribute to eighth graders. Consider encouraging your high school students to participate in middle school culture fairs. At pre-registration time you could send some mature outgoing students to meet middle school students during their lunch time to greet them in Japanese and to hand out recruitment information.

Many of the students who study world languages do so to meet college admission requirements. In addition to what I suggested earlier about informing counselors about local and regional collegiate Japanese language programs, there are more ways to work with counselors with this process. When the National College Fairs visit your area, recruiters or admissions counselors from Japanese universities or American universities with programs in Japan may attend. Hopefully you get to know these folks and can arrange for them to visit your school to speak with your students and the counselors.

You are probably asked to write letters of recommendations from your high-achieving students; however there are probably many more of your students who choose other core area teachers to write their recommendations. The counselors have to write school reports or letters of recommendations for all their students who need them. It would be greatly appreciated by a counselor if you provided them with one or two quotes they could use in those letters. It was suggested at the end of each of your students’ junior year that you send to the counselor a one or two sentence quote about how they contributed to your classroom, commenting on such things as work ethic, enthusiasm, creativity, determination to master the language.

Remember to share information that you have about scholarships or opportunities to attend summer camps, or exchange programs. Often times this information never gets to the counselor. It is always a great idea to invite your counselors and/or administrators to help chaperone your student trips to Japan. They could not have a more powerful demonstration of your students’ learning or the rewards of studying a second language.

Let me end by stating your school should be impacted by your program to the degree that any visitor to your high school ought to know that the Japanese language is being taught in that school. There needs to be visible signs of your efforts seen in displays of student work or in signage about the building. Even more important would be that your principal and your counselors are talking about your program with enthusiasm and pride. You know you have done your job when they do this.

Good luck and continued success in building positive and helpful relations with your administrator and counselors.

(February 2010)