Recent world events have caused Americans to reassess national political, economic, and educational priorities, resulting in a shift towards Asia. The schools in response have begun to introduce less commonly taught languages, such as Japanese and Chinese. Many Utah public schools have tried to implement less commonly taught language programs. Some have succeeded, and other others have not. The purpose of this study was to understand how and why some schools were able to successfully integrate less commonly taught language programs, and why others were not.The results of this study suggest that the factors relating to students’ interests and the teacher/administrator relationship were the most important positive factors affecting the success of the Japanese programs with staying power. It was also found that the factors relating to funding issues and student enrollment were the most important negative factors affecting the failure of the long-term Japanese programs that were eliminated
