Published: Feb 10, 2025
By: Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque
As Sister States, Maryland and Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, (south of Tokyo) have collaborated in various initiatives in business, education, healthcare, and culture exchange programs since 1981, including ongoing partnerships at UMBC. For the past six years, UMBC has proudly partnered with the Kanagawa Association of Private Junior/Senior Schools, welcoming their teachers and students for UMBC’s spring break and summer Intensive English Program and TESOL certificate programs. Likewise, UMBC students who are learning Japanese have participated in the Teach Abroad: Kanagawa Internship, an internship program with schools in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Following the great success of their education exchanges, UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement (CGE) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kanagawa Association of Private Junior/ Senior Schools to establish the annual Global Achievement Scholarship. This new partnership creates an undergraduate admissions pathway for up to 10 high school students from Kanagawa Prefecture beginning in fall 2026.
For students like William Mo, a senior majoring in modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication with a concentration in Japanese, opportunities to immerse in the Japanese language and culture help build an invaluable professional and social network in preparation for the international job market. Mo, whose goal is to live and work in Japan, had the opportunity to participate in the Teach Abroad: Kanagawa Internship, which offered him three months of teaching middle school students while living in a student dorm.
This was Mo’s first internship and real work experience beyond his part-time job as a peer advisor in UMBC’s Education Abroad Office. “I participated in this internship to help make a stronger case for myself when I apply to JET [Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program], to satisfy my own desire to sightsee in Japan, and experience what it is like to teach English,” says Mo. He had to balance work and online classes as well as co-lead activities like English conversation cafes, where Japanese students practiced their conversational English. “All my skills related to communicating and interacting in Japanese strengthened greatly since I regularly talked to the office staff, students, and anyone I needed to talk to.”
Upon returning to UMBC, Mo found new ways to maintain his new level of proficiency. Last summer, when nearly 60 high school students and teachers from Kanagawa Prefecture arrived for the Intensive English Program and TESOL certificate programs, he volunteered in Japanese conversation cafes with the visiting students while playing board games. He also served as a guide and chaperone for the students’ trips to Washington, D.C., Baltimore City, and Annapolis.
Similar to Mo’s experience in Japan, some of the participants shared that the summer programs gave them important insights into what it would be like to live and work in the United States and study at UMBC. As the Global Achievement Scholarship gets underway in 2026, UMBC will be home to more Japanese students who will join the hundreds of international students, as well as those from the United States, who have entrusted UMBC with their desire to create extraordinary possibilities for themselves and their communities.
Learn more about UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement international exchange programs.
For more information about UMBC’s Teach Abroad: Kanagawa Internship contact Tomoko Hoogenboom, teaching professor of Japanese language and culture, at tmkhgnbm@umbc.edu.
Tags: CAHSS, CGE, Education Abroad, MLLI
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