Hisae Kobayashi

Hisae Kobayashi teaches Japanese 101, 102, Japanese 201 and 202, and Independent Study. In 2014, Kobayashi was named the Connecticut Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), recognized for her rigorous methods of teaching and dedication to undergraduate education.

Hisae Kobayashi was born and grew up in Tokyo, receiving a B.A. in English language and literature at Tsuda College, Tokyo, where she was a teacher of English at both Tokyo Metropolitan Setagaya Technical High School and Tokyo Metropolitan Kinuta Technical High School, Tokyo before coming to the United States in 1992.

She trained to teach Japanese as a foreign language at the Bryn Mawr College Summer Institute in Pennsylvania. She obtained a master's degree with a counseling concentration in education at the University of Evansville, IN and went on to Williams College as a visiting lecturer in Japanese for 5 years before coming to Connecticut College.

In 2008, she received the College's John S. King Memorial Teaching Award, given to those teacher-scholars who demonstrate high standards of teaching excellence and concern for students.

Her article, "Tradition or Cliché: Forward or Backward? Reflections on Teaching Japanese", appeared in the Fall 2009 online edition of the College's CC:Magazine.

Kobayashi is very interested in helping students learn the way to communicate effectively with Japanese native speakers in a socially and culturally appropriate manner as well as meeting various needs of students' interests. In this regard, she has conducted three TRIPs (Traveling Research and Immersion Program) to Japan for the College, in 2002, 2003 and TRIP Japan 2005.

Kobayashi developed an innovative way to combine Japanese scripts and sound in her Japanese online courses. She also will be participating in Haverford College's CET workshop to continue developing a Web-based Japanese reading/writing program.

Her essay, which she translated from the original in Japanese, "American College Students in the Pop Culture Generation," has been published in Japanese Women Who Live in the United States (Domesu Shuppan, 2005).

She also served as the Japanese language program coordinator and adviser to CISLA, the Toor-Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts, and served a three-year term on the Study Away Committee.

Visit the East Asian Languages and Cultures website.

Majoring in East Asian Studies.

"Knowing about language is totally different from using language. I would like to help students USE Japanese in a socially and culturally appropriate manner. In other words, I will help them apply their knowledge to real life. I know it's not easy to learn Japanese, but I'm sure they will get a reward from what they've learned."

"Let's have fun in Japanese!" or in other words: "Issyo ni ganbarimasyoo!!" (Let's give it our all!) - Hisae Kobayashi