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It is a pleasure for me to write a letter of reference to you in behalf of Satoshi Shinzato who is
an extremely gifted and highly capable individual.
As a faculty member it has been my special opportunity to associate with Satoshi here at
Brigham Young University while he has completed his graduate work in Educational Leadership.
Satoshi has taken several of the Endorsement Program courses in Education of the Gifted Child,
from me. I found him to be a very hard working, diligent, and faithful student. He paper work is
exceptional. This has been especially impressive since his native language is Japanese. He expresses
himself well and participates effectively in all graduate activities. He is a capable researcher, and is
wise and perceptive in his reporting procedures.
He is an amazingly talented individual who could be very successful in a variety of
professional fields. He is exceedingly bright, extremely well balanced and well adjusted personally.
Others enjoy and appreciate their association with him. He is a well groomed, courteous and a very
appealing gentleman. He would be a good role model for university students or others learning
under his direction.
In the process of the completion of his work in Gifted Education Satoshi completed a
practicum in which he taught a university class using gifted programming.
I had the opportunity to visit his class, and I was pleased to see him implement the things he had
learned in gifted education. He asked his students many thought provoking higher level thinking
questions, and then he listened carefully to his students' responses. He had given assignments to his
students to do personal research in Japanese history, and as the students reported their findings he
helped to build on their understanding and he helped them to work cooperatively with one another.
In his classroom there was a very good spirit of collaboration, mutual support, courtesy and respect.
Students were encouraged to ask questions and they were treated with honor and kindness. He
encouraged an excitement to learn, in his students. They had obviously developed a great respect
for him. He is a master teacher.
Satoshi developed a wonderful teaching manual using wisely applied gifted curriculum
procedures. His teaching manual would be a superb resource for other teachers wishing to teach on a
university level. We are hopeful to co-present a paper on this teaching manual and effective teaching
processes at the World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children in Seattle, Washington this
coming summer, 1997.
In my opinion, when he teaches in Japan, Satoshi will be a wonderful mentor for his
students and wise and helpful professional associate for other faculty members. They will be very
fortunate to have him on their faculty team. I certainly recommend Satoshi Shinzato to you
enthusiastically and without reservation.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sally M. Todd |
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It is with great pleasure that I write a letter of recommendation for Mr. Satoshi Shinzato, who is
applying for a teaching position at your institution. I have known Mr. Shinzato ever since he took my
Japanese language methodology course two years ago. He was such an excellent and enthusiastic
student that I hired him as a teaching assistant in our department right after he took the class. He has
been extremely helpful and dependable. In fact, he was so good that as director of the Middlebury
Japanese School, I asked him to teach at Middlebury College last year.
He taught the third year conversation drill class at Middlebury and has been teaching an
intermediate, content based (Japanese History) class here at Brigham Young University since 1995. I
attend his classes and meet often with him to discuss his teaching and students. He is a very creative and
efficient instructor. His classes are always well-organized, well-prepared, and structured with wonderful
discussion topics. Since there are few good reading and writing texts in the field, we have been
developing new materials and he has helped me immensely with this project. I have been very impressed
with his promptness and the quality of the materials lie has developed. He just finished an excellent
manual for the teaching assistants who will be teaching this course. He is very capable and creative in his
work.
He has been well-liked by both his students and colleagues. He had one of the highest evaluations
(6.9 "exceptional" out of 7.0 possible) of all the teachers in our department. Some of the comments from
the students' evaluations were:
■Mr. Shinzato is genuinely concerned with our progress. Great teacher!
■Shinzato was a great T.A., great help, and a great friend. I was truly blessed to have him.
He makes Japanese fun.
■Middlebury's Japanese School had better watch out. If Shinzato sensei ever decides to
establish a rival language school, the students will flock to him, abandoning dear
Middlebury. His spunkiness, cheerfulness, good humor, and smile have won over every
student. His class is always the subject of discussion at the lunch table! He makes learning a
lot of fun.
He is a graduate of the most prominent university in Okinawa, Ryukyu University, but his talents
are not limited to academics. He is exceptionally talented in all sorts of things such as music and drama
and extremely interested in education. He is an excellent individual and I am sure he will contribute as
much to your program if not more. He is definitely one that I will continue to ask to teach for us in the future. Your students as well as colleagues will undoubtedly enjoy working with him
any other information, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely yours,
Msakazu Watabe
Associate professor/Brigham Young University
Director/Middlebury Japanese School |
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