FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS GOES EAST - FAR EAST 36 VALENCIA HIGH STUDENTS SIGN UP FOR INAUGURAL COURSE IN JAPANESE.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Valencia High is going Japanese.

The mother tongue of the land known in the West for sushi, well-rounded baseball players and cutthroat business acumen will be offered at the local high school, beginning in August with an inaugural class of 36 students.

``The district is thrilled to be able to finally offer this opportunity to our students,'' said Vicki Engbrecht, curriculum director for the William S. Hart Union High School District. ``We're hoping to be able to enlarge the program in the next few years.''

Japanese was offered once about four years ago as an after-school enrichment program at La Mesa Junior High, but the upcoming year-long course counts toward actual graduation units, said instructor Kim Atkin, who also will teach American Sign Language in the fall.

``It's an exploratory class,'' said Atkin, who has taught history at Valencia and worked with struggling students at the former Passport Academy.

If interest remains, the course would be submitted for district approval as a regular offering that also fulfills the 2-year foreign language requirement at most universities, she said.

There has been steady interest in expanding district foreign language offerings beyond Spanish and French, Superintendent Robert Lee said.

``I can't say that it is a wildfire by any means,'' he said. ``We have such a broad base of elective offerings. ... It's one of those things that I suspect will grow.''

Even though the pilot program may not count toward college, there were enough applications to fill two classes, Atkin said. Most of the pupils appeared inspired by their interests in video games and anime, Japanese animation. That style of filmmaking gained recent renown after one such feature - ``Spirited Away'' - took the Academy Award for best animated film earlier this year.

``In video games, they'll see something and they want to know what it means,'' she said. ``If there's an interest, then why not? I don't think it matters whatever the catalyst is.''

It won't be easy. Japanese has few connections with European languages, and students will have to start with the basics such as the alphabet, which has two written forms. Throw in the occasional Chinese character, or Kanji, and unfamiliar grammar and you have what Atkin called one of the most difficult languages in the world.

``If there's not a real interest to learn the language, then I think it's going to be hard for them,'' she said.

But it could be rewarding.

``As a society and as a world culture, we're closer today than we've ever been,'' Lee said. ``And being in the Pacific Rim as we are, ... I think a person who chooses to understand another language certainly expands their skills and talent pool.''

For Atkin, who first studied the language in high school in Hawaii and spent 18 months living in Tokyo as an English teacher, Japanese is a passport to understanding a culture different yet similar to our own.

``When you don't know about them as a people, you think they're a certain way,'' she said. ``But when you learn about them, you see they're different but also see that they're the same.

``For example, everybody cares about their family, but not everybody does it the same way,'' Atkin said. ``You can't always judge someone based on your values.''

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Kim Atkin - who will be teaching Japanese at Valencia High School this fall, with 36 students signed up for the pilot program - spent 18 months living in Tokyo as an English teacher.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer