Down Time

So, when I'm not busy teaching or preparing for English class, I like to sit in on other classes with my students. My favorites are music, art, home making, and science because they don't require a whole lot of Japanese knowledge to follow.



At first I was reluctant to join these classes, feeling like I might be imposing on another teacher's lesson or distracting the kids. I still feel this is an issue with some subjects at the junior high, but most teachers are happy to have me join in. PE classes at elementary school are especially fun. Warm ups usually involve a game like tag to get the kids moving around in a fun way. I think having another adult to play with the kids gives the teachers a bit of a break.

Elementary science classes in Japan are nothing like I remember from my school. The kids get to run fun experiments with open flames (see above) and breadboards, which I don't remember seeing until high school. Most of these classes are interactive and when I join, I get a chance to participate as well. It's pretty great.


Junior high home making and wood shop classes are a great way to see the kids' creativity. I wish I could join in on some of their projects, but even though I visit the school every day, I'm not there often enough to join consecutive classes. Plus, there's always the possibility that I'll be busy with a class.

There have been a few days where I've spent more time with my kids outside of English class than teaching. As much as I enjoy teaching, I feel it's equally important to spend this extra time with my students. It helps get them comfortable around me and, I hope, projects a good image of foreigners.

Photo Friday: Koi Kites

May 5th is Children's Day, a holiday in Japan to celebrate (surprise!) children.


The most visible indication of this holiday's impending arrival is the koinobori, or carp streamers, displayed in front of households with children.


The black koi represents the father and the red represents the mother. A koi is added underneath for each son in the family, though more recently I believe one is added for every child. The koi are meant to represent the family's hope that the children grow up to be strong, as legend says that a koi who swims upstream will become a dragon. They look really cool on windy days, flapping in the wind as though they are swimming in the air.

First Special Needs Class of the Year

I teach an English class for the special needs children at my junior high about once a week. It’s not a duty too many ALTs I’ve met have to deal with on a regular basis and while it’s certainly fun it can also be really challenging. This year I have two students, a boy and a girl. I taught the girl last year and she only has a slight learning disability so I’m already pretty familiar with how to communicate with her. The boy on the other hand is new and necessitated hiring a second teacher to run his class, so it was already clear that he would present different problems. I haven’t asked about him yet, but it appears as though he has ADD. It’s very difficult to keep his attention and though he knows a little English, it’s always disjointed, making running a themed lesson pretty hard.

For my first lesson, I did the English alphabet. It seemed like a good place to start as I knew both students were at least a little familiar with it. Before we started, I introduced the warm-up activity I began last year, which includes five commands: stand up, sit down, spin, bow, and jump. It’s a really simple activity that can be expanded over the course of a year. For instance, after the lesson on numbers this week, I’ll start adding a number before some of the actions.

The start of the lesson was probably the most difficult part, though that’s true for a lot of classes. Mindlessly repeating things is just not too exciting an activity. Things picked up when we started playing games, though. First was karuta, which kept both of the students entertained enough to pay attention. Karuta, if I haven’t explained elsewhere, is a card game in Japan where something is read out loud, traditionally a poem, and players have to find and hit cards with corresponding lines. In English class, this is usually reduced to calling out letters, animals, subjects, etc. and having the students hit cards with those things on them. Whoever is fastest gets to keep the card and at the end of the game, I have them count how many they have and declare a winner. Both of the kids did really well, with Shiori barely coming out ahead.

Next, we played a game in which they could say up to three letters in alphabetical order and were trying to not be the person who says “z”. This game was a little more complicated and it became apparent that while Shiori understood the way it was played, Shouma was simply repeating what we asked him to do. All the same, he ended up winning two of the three games. Lastly, we did a connect-the-dot that used upper and lower case letters instead of numbers. When they finished, I asked them to write what animal they had drawn in English below the picture (it was a bird) and to write their names somewhere on the page. We finished class by coloring the picture.

It was a decent start to the year, but it wasn’t without problems. If I had one major complaint, it would be that the Japanese teachers did very little to help class along. I’m fine with planning the lesson, and in fact have a number of ideas at the ready, but the special needs class used to be among my favorites in no small part because the previous teacher was so open and friendly during class. She would always try her best to speak to me in English and joined in most of the games. With the current teachers, I feel like I’m putting them out just asking them to come over and help me explain something difficult to the kids. I still think I’ll have a good time teaching the class, but it’s not the same as it was.

Monthy Meetup: Anne's

So, we Amakusa ALTs have begun having “unofficial” get-togethers every month, meaning they aren’t planned and organized by our area representatives like Christmas or the welcome party is. We decided to rotate the host of these parties every month so no one gets overwhelmed with having to prepare for them (though come to think of it, this should encourage all of us to clean up a bit in preparation for our turn).

Last Friday, we met at Anne’s house. Anne is the high school ALT for Ushibuka and this was actually the first time I’d been out to her house. Even with directions, I almost missed the turn off from the main road (thanks Emily!). The roads to her house were really narrow and it was a little unnerving driving them at night. I’m just glad no one else was coming down the same street.

The party followed what has become a pretty standard formula. We ate and chatted for a bit about work and recontracting, since that decision has to be made by mid-February. I’m a bit saddened by how many people will be leaving next year, but I understand that they all have their reasons. By this time in the year, most people are pretty settled on their views of Japan, so it was refreshing to not hear only about bad experiences, as is usually the case around November, when the first years are all hitting stage two of culture shock.

Amanda and I brought along a bunch of games from the house, Marie and Andrew had brought Monopoly, and Erik and Emily provided cards to play nerts, which has become our game of choice at these types of events. We discussed for a short bit what we should play, as we had two native Japanese speakers, and decided on Apples to Apples, as Amanda’s version is bi-lingual. I succeeded in not making any lifelong enemies this time around, and was amused that everyone assumes the most horrible or out of place card is mine. Next, we played Scategories. That game is a lot harder than I remember it being as a kid. The average seemed to be around 15 points. Pretty sure Amanda won with 19. Next, I sat and watched as Anne, Amanda, Erik, and Emily played the Peanut Butter Jelly Game, which we had inherited from a departing JET last year. It looked like an amusing game, but I think having the maximum number of players made it drag on far too long. Last, we played nerts, a card game I was unaware of until I got to Japan. I was teamed up with Emily for the first round and while we put in a pretty good performance, we lost to Erik and Shuhei. For the second round, I was with Amanda. We managed to win the game despite having some really tough starts.

Throughout the night, Anne had some music playing off her computer. It was a really good mix of songs from the 90s that we all seemed familiar with. Amanda kept saying how much she loved the song selection, which led to a discussion of what music we listened to. Amanda plugged in her iPod and everyone had fun playing with iDaft, a soundboard for a few of Daft Punk’s more popular songs. I asked if anyone had seen Interstella 5555 and said I’d bring it with me for next month’s party, which will be at Erik’s place I believe.

After the second game of nerts, I finally checked the time. It was 2 AM and we still had about an hour trip to Kuritake followed by another 40-minute trip home. We said our goodbyes and headed home. When we dropped off Emily, we went inside for a bit to see her new puppy, which Amanda loves to death. We finally got home at about 4 and crashed. It was a fun day.

Ushibuka Haiya and Parent's Day

With the end of my contract quickly approaching, I have resolved to update this blog at least once a day for the next month. It’s going to be difficult with all the other obligations I’ve got going right now, but it is something I feel I should return to.

Last weekend was a rather busy one. On Saturday, the Amakusa ALTs all met in Ushibuka to participate in the annual haiya. Though there are other haiya festivals, even in Amakusa, Usibuka’s is considered the most famous. A haiya, from what I’ve gathered, is a festival meant to grant good luck to fishermen and ensure a fruitful fishing season. The main attraction is a large parade where different groups dance to music played throughout the city.

In the Ushibuka Haiya, the ALTs have their own group called “Hello, how are you?” and we try to get as many people involved as we can. This year, almost every ALT in Amakusa joined in, even Doug, who had only arrived the day before. We also had a number of Yatsushiro ALTs come and participate. Combined with the Amakusa Friends group, a local international exchange organization, we had a pretty sizable team. We gathered before the event for a small party and dance practice. It was a good opportunity to see and talk with everyone and I had a lot of fun helping teach the dance to the first year ALTs and those who hadn’t been able to make it in previous years.

The parade lasted about two hours. We got a number of compliments on our dancing from the spectators and other groups. This year, I felt confident enough to dance up front, but still made a few mistakes, especially when I was distracted by people I knew. I didn’t see too many people from my area, but a few of my students were there and I waved to them. Two members of our group received prizes for their dancing.

After it was all over, we returned our rental clothes and visited a few of the food stalls set up around the city. As fun as dancing is, I really like the time before and after where we can run around and talk to the people in the town. Case in point, at one stall, there was a little girl who was incredibly excited to see foreigners, which is strange since kids are usually shy around us. I saw her hovering around as everyone ordered food and decided to introduce myself. She told me her name (Kokoro) and we shook hands. A tiny detail to be sure, but I really like moments like that. We got some delicious crepes and Anne managed to snag the last of the flavored french fries, which she shared with everyone. Though there was a party afterward, we weren’t able to attend and ended up leaving around 11, getting home an hour later.

The next day was parent's day at my junior high, which meant working on Sunday to ensure that as many parents as possible cold come and observe the classes. Honestly, most of the day was pretty standard, with only one class being watched by the parents. My school did seem to place additional importance on the English program though, ensuring that English was one of the few classes during the period where the parents came, that it was a first grade class, and discussing it during the meeting we had 6th period. The meeting was really the only bad point of the day, other than coming in on Sunday. Initially, my JTE told me I wouldn’t have to go, but when it came time to leave for the meeting, I was told not only would I have to go, but I would have to give a brief self-introduction to the parents. This really isn’t that big a deal, but some warning would have been nice and it’s times like these that remind me that I’m not always viewed as an equal among the teachers. I’ll save the rant for another day, but basically if you consistently fail to clue me in to the duties and events you want me to participate in (for example, forgetting to tell me that there’s going to be a party until the day before it happens) you really shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not investing in a relationship with you.

After the meeting, the parents split off into groups by grade and had meetings with the homeroom teachers. I helped the parents find their group as they came down the stairs. Having only ten minutes until my work day was finished, I packed up my things and watched the first graders practice tennis for the first time. It was a bit nostalgic for me as I thought back to when I first started practicing with the second grade students, who are now much better than me.