By Jerry Herrmann

The Daily Courier

September 16, 2008

PHOTO by Jo. L. Keener:  Prescott High School teacher Clark Tenney works from a textbook as the class studies the Japanese language Friday.

Little did Clark Tenney dream while a student at Prescott High School in the 1980s that he would be teaching conversational Japanese there 21 years later.

Today, Tenney, who speaks fluent Japanese, is teaching 89 PHS students first-year conversational Japanese.

Why are these students learning this particular language?

"Some want to visit Japan someday and want to be able to speak the language, while others think the language is 'cool,' or they want to study it in college," Tenney said. "By taking it now, they have their two years of foreign language that many universities require today."

Also, he said that while Japan has the world's second-largest economy, the number of Japanese proficient in speaking English is limited, so the demand for Americans who speak Japanese is increasing.

Japan has intrigued the 1987 PHS graduate since he was a youth. He went on a two-year Mormon missionary trip to Japan during his university education. While there, he decided he wanted to teach Japanese.

Tenney has a bachelor of science degree in education and a bachelor of arts degree in Japanese teaching from Brigham Young University.

In addition, he taught Japanese for three years to students in a Utah high school before moving to Japan in 1996. There, he was an American teaching Japanese language and culture to American students in The American School in Japan. He taught there through the 2006-07 school year before moving his family back to Prescott.

In 2007-08, he taught U.S. History and Government at PHS. During the year, he got permission survey the students to see if they wanted to learn Japanese. More than 600 students said they were interested or somewhat interested.

After getting the blessing from the chairs of the school's departments, the issue went before the Prescott Unified School District's Board, which unanimously approved a two-year program at PHS.

Tenney started with the first year of Japanese and will add a second year next year.

Tenney said he expected about 45 students to sign up, but 100 did. Because of class scheduling conflicts and some of the students learning how difficult learning Japanese is, 11 have dropped out.

"Learning how to read and write in Japanese is very difficult, and learning to speak and listen in Japanese is more difficult than learning Spanish," he said. "The Japanese language has 2,000 characters in it, which is what makes it so difficult."

In Japan, Tenney said he could give students assignments to go home and interview people in Japanese, which he cannot do here.

"Unlike with Spanish, we don't have a large population that speaks Japanese the students can practice on," he said.

He uses the "Adventures in Japanese" textbook, which he used in Japan.

"I'm really pleased to see the progress the students are making and their level of interest in the language," Tenney said.

Next year he hopes to enter some of his second-year Japanese language students in some speech competitions. He also hopes to take some students on a non-school trip to Japan next year.

"It's great to be back and sharing what I enjoy with my students," Tenney said. "The feedback from students is great so far. At our Back to School night several parents said they were excited their children are taking Japanese."

Contact the reporter a jeherrmann@prescottaz.com