The language of excellence – Juanita High School Japanese language teacher received national award for her work with students

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) recently named Juanita High School teacher Kei Tsukamaki as the 2025 National Language Teacher of the Year. The award presentation was held during the 2024 ACTFL Convention & World Languages Expo on Friday, November 22, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pa. The Language Teacher of the Year is a program managed by the Language Connects Foundation (LCF), the charitable and public education affiliate of ACTFL.

According to ACTFL’s release, Kei Tsukamaki is in her fourteenth-year teaching Japanese in Washington state. She has served as President of the Washington Association of Teachers of Japanese and currently serves as Department Chair in her building and is a member of Lake Washington School District’s Japanese Curriculum Writing Team. Tsukamaki is the 2024 Pacific Northwest Council for Languages (PNCFL) Teacher of the Year and the 2023 Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT) Teacher of the Year.

The award for the ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year elevates the status of the language teaching profession at the state, regional and national levels by creating opportunities for recognizing the most accomplished members of the profession. The Teacher of the Year becomes a national spokesperson for the language profession to further demonstrate the critical importance of learning languages and cultures to the general public.

“We congratulate Kei on being named 2025 ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year,” said Lawrence Paska, ACTFL Executive Director. “Her professional accomplishments are a testament to hard work, passion, and dedication to the field of language education. I look forward to our continued collaboration during Kei’s year of service and advocacy to the profession as ACTFL’s National Language Teacher of the Year.”