Kaufman Hall 122
(405) 325-1465
Profile
Shizuka Tatsuzawa received her Master’s degree in TESOL from New York University, where she concentrated on teaching Japanese and English as a second language in college. As part of her M.A. training, she attended the Summer Institute in Japanese Language Pedagogy at Columbia University. This course focused on teaching Japanese as a second language on an academic level. She also holds a Master’s degree in American Literature from Showa Women’s University in Tokyo, Japan.
Before coming to OU, she taught all levels of Japanese language and culture in several high schools in New York City and on Long Island. Further, she received the Outstanding High School Teacher Award from the University of Chicago and she taught at the New School University in New York City.
Since 2000, she has been teaching in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma, where she has taught beginning Japanese, intermediate Japanese, advanced Japanese, and many independent studies. Her great passion is teaching Japanese as a second language, and she believes that by providing students with a solid foundation, they will be more motivated to continue studying Japanese. She is currently the Coordinator of the Japanese Program and the academic advisor for the Japanese major and minor, and she also wrote and submitted the successful proposal for the B.A. in Japanese at OU, which was launched in fall 2016. Additionally, she has served as a committee member for the MLLL Review, on the Campus Interview Committee for Fulbright Applicants, and on the East, Southeast Asia and Oceania Study Abroad committee for Education Abroad and the College of International Studies. She is also an adviser to the OU Japanese Club, Sooner Anime Society, and OU Men’s Volleyball Club at the University of Oklahoma. Shizuka is moreover an official interviewer for the selection of finalists for the "Japan Exchange and Teaching" (JET) program with the Consulate-General of Japan in Houston Texas and is an ACTFL-certified Oral Proficiency Interview Tester for all levels of Japanese, novice to superior.
Furthermore, Shizuka participated in the developmental review of the second edition of Houghton Mifflin's Nakama 1a and 1b, by Seiichi Makino, Yukiko Hatasa and Kazumi Hatasa, and she presented a paper, “Implementing J-CAT Test to assess students’ Japanese language proficiency,” at a recent Southwest Conference on Language Teaching Southwest (SWCOLT) meeting.
Among her awards are the OU College of Arts and Sciences' John H. and Jane M. Patten Distinguished Teacher Award in the Humanities, the Educators’ Leadership Academy award, and the provost's Good Teaching Award.
Teaching Schedule for Spring 2023
JAPN 2113 Intermediate Japanese
JAPN 2223 Intermediate Japanese (continued)
JAPN 3223 Advanced Japanese II
