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Center for Accelerated Language Acquisition

Rebecca Clippard

Rebecca Clippard is an alumna of Oakland High School’s International Baccalaureate Program and a recipient of the prestigious Buchanan Scholar Award with the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) University Honors College. Rebecca learned Japanese through attendance at the Japanese government’s Japanese Supplementary School, dual-enrollment classes in high school, and later as a Japanese major at MTSU.

Inspired to share her passion of the Japanese language and culture, Rebecca has sought out opportunities for teacher training. She has served as a teacher’s aide in the English as a Second Langauge (ESL) classroom at John Pittard Elementary School and has done a university graduate study and practicum in Dr. Shelley Thomas’ course on brain-based learning and pedagogy in the foreign language classroom.

Rebecca was awarded the prestigious Bridging Scholarship for Study Abroad in Japan, a national scholarship funded by the American Association of Teachers of Japanese.  With it, she spent the 2016-17 academic year abroad at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata, Japan.  On her return, she aspires to pursue a Ph.D. in Japanese language and literature and teach at the university level.


Read Testimonials from Rebecca’s Japanese Classes

Contact Us

Center for Accelerated Language Acquisition (CALA) 
c/o Shelley Thomas
Middle Tennessee State University
Honors Box 267
Murfreesboro, TN 37132 


Shelley Thomas, Ph.D.
CALA Director
shelley.thomas@mtsu.edu

Brian Roberts, M.A.T.
CALA Associate Director
brian.roberts@mtsu.edu