Class Report: How many (Part 3)

Due to last week’s soyokaze entry, I’ll be skipping a week in regard to my fifth graders, but most of the lesson was a game from the previous week anyway, so really you aren’t missing much.  Both Rino and another absent student were able to pick up on eleven through twenty pretty quickly.  It may be the case that they are just fast learners, or they may be going to juku, a kind of cram school students go to at night.  So everyone was up to speed for this lesson.  I should also mention that my homeroom teacher wasn’t at school last week.  As I may have mentioned elsewhere, this is her first year teaching, so apparently there are days when she will be studying rather than teaching.  As a result, I was working with another teacher during this class who wasn’t familiar with the lessons up to this point, giving me even more control and responsibility than usual.

We started with the snakes and ladders game, which we had played the previous week.  The rules were rather complicated and involved playing rock, paper, scissors and advancing a number of places depending on what you won with.  If the student lost, they didn’t move, and the second player played against the third, etc.  If they landed on the bottom of a ladder, they could move up to the top, but the head of a snake made them move down to its tail.  Just like the game I used to play as a kid, though a bit simplified.  I think the kids had a lot of fun playing, though we were only able to play one game before having to move on to the next activity.

The next activity was also fairly confusing for my kids, especially since their teacher wasn’t there to help explain it, though the substitute tried her best to help.  The students chose their favorite kanji and wrote it in a square in their books.  Next, they wrote the stroke count for the kanji.  Each kanji, or pictograph, in Japanese has a certain way in which you’re supposed to draw it.  For instance 犬 is a four stroke kanji while 右 is five strokes.  We asked that the kids chose kanji that had six strokes or less.  They then went around the classroom asking everyone “How many?” meaning how many strokes their kanji was.  Students with the same number wrote each other’s kanji in a third box.  When everyone was finished, I asked how many kanji they had written in the last box, giving them a little more counting practice.

All in all, this wasn’t my favorite lesson, but I think the main point for the day was learning the question sentence, which my kids did.  I told them that from that day on if I ever needed to pass papers to them, I would ask the first student how many they needed for their row.  This took a few tries before a few students understood enough and translated it into Japanese for the rest.  I really hope they understood, because it’s one of the easiest ways to reinforce the concepts in this chapter in future lessons.

One Year Later

Almost a year has past since I arrived in Japan.  With another year ahead of me, I think it’s time for a little introspection on what I’ve accomplished over the last year and what I want to accomplish this year. This entry is less about the JET experience than it is about my personal experience, though I imagine a good number of people living and teaching over here have gone through similar things.

When I arrived in Japan, I had never taught a day in my life.  Well, not really.  I put my experience with vacation bible school down on my application, but during that time I was only an assistant to the arts and crafts teacher.  I had never planned or run an English lesson nor did I have any idea what exactly would be expected of me as an ALT by my specific schools.  For their part, CLAIR and AJET had some useful panels at the Tokyo Orientation all about teaching English abroad.  Teaching experience is not a requirement for this position, and I think they understand there are several applicants like me who need the extra help.  Despite this, I still felt woefully unprepared for my first classes and was incredibly nervous around my students, of whom I knew nothing.

This first year has been as much about my learning how to teach and live in Japan as it has teaching students English.  I feel this has come at a high cost.  I look back over the pictures of last year’s graduation ceremony for Ariake Junior High and am upset to find that I cannot name even a single graduating student.  I feel I’d made no real connections to any student at that time.  However, I have learned how to teach, at least enough that running a class alone or planning a lesson in as little as five minutes is not nearly as daunting as it once was.  I have confidence now when standing in front of the students, and can approach and speak to almost any of them, now that I know, in a general sense, what level of English they can understand.

If my first year was learning how to teach English, I want this next year to be about how to teach my students.  I want to get to know all my kids: their names, their interests, and their language ability.  I want to be able to give more personalized attention to students who may need extra help in order to understand the lesson and when I run into their parents, which has happened on occasion, I want to be able to smile knowingly and give some genuine praise of their son or daughter.  Is this an achievable goal?  I certainly think so and I know several ALTs who have done the same.  But it is going to be difficult.  I teach upwards of 250 students at varying degrees of frequency and even with all extra time I’ve been spending with various clubs and activities I would guess I barely know a third of their names, if that.

Naturally, getting to know my students comes with its own drawbacks.  I’ve already been made aware of several cases of in fighting among students, which makes it difficult as I want everyone to be happy.  Of course my school is filled with the same problems as any comparable school in America, but at least before I started to delve into my students’ lives outside English class I didn’t have to worry about it.  Also weighing on my mind is the thought that I‘ll eventually have to leave my students or, as is the case with the 3rd graders at junior high, that they’ll leave me.  I think it’s one of the hardest tings about this job.  Add that to the fact that I’ll never really know what kind of impact I had here.  Even if I did do something remarkable and helped a student in a significant way, I’ll never know, because in a year I’ll be gone and I’ll never see any of my kids again.

So that’s basically where I’m at right now.  I keep telling myself there’s no reason to be thinking about things that are still a year away and that it’s better to concentrate on the present.  And for what it’s worth, the present is pretty awesome.  I’m enjoying spending as much time with my kids as I can in spite of the occasional rough moments.

Class Report: Soyokaze Special

Last Tuesday was Tanabata here in Japan.  It also happened to be the day I was scheduled to teach the soyokaze (special needs) kids.  I was told just before class started that we would be having a short culture time before my lesson by helping decorate the kids’ tanabata bamboo.  After our introductions, the kids brought out the bamboo and several decorations including little pieces of colored paper with their wishes written on them.  I’m pretty sure that Shiori wished for many DS games and Risa wanted to make lots of friends.  After everything was gathered on their desk, we started to decorate.

The whole thing reminded me a bit of Christmas.  Everyone gathered around the bamboo and started putting on decorations.  All the decorations were brightly colored and it made for a really vibrant and festive piece.  I kept asking my kids where I should place the decorations.  Since they’re young and small, they wanted me to put the decorations on the top of the bamboo and squealed with delight when I tied one to the upper most branch.  Shiori eventually brought out a chair to stand on so she could place one of her wishes a bit higher up.  When we were all finished, we took a picture together in front of the bamboo.  Shiori and Risa were both a bit hesitant to stand near me, so I had to pull them in a bit closer.  It made me really happy that I could share that experience with them.

The rest of class was spent learning how to ask and answer the question, “What’s this?”  As I’ve said, I tend to run the soyokaze class like an elementary class.  I brought in my black box, a box with one side cut out and a hole on the top.  One student stood behind the box and closed their eyes while the other put something small, like a pencil or pen, into the box.  The first student reached into the hole on top of the box and tried to guess what was inside.  Both of them did really well, though ruler is a really hard word for them. 

Next, I gave everyone, including the teacher, a piece of paper.  I told them they could draw a picture of anything whose English word they knew, but that it was a secret to everyone else.  We all went off to different parts of the room to draw our pictures.  When we were done, we held up our pictures with most of the paper folded over, hiding it.  We gradually revealed our picture in increments, each time asking “What’s this” and having the others guess. It was a lot of fun, and a good indication for me of what vocabulary they remembered.  I drew grapes that, rather surprisingly, Risa got very quickly.  Shiori drew a cat, her favorite animal.  The teacher drew a car, which I wasn’t aware my kids knew.  Lastly, Risa drew a panda, which the teacher actually guessed correctly on accident.  This class was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next time I get the opportunity to teach it.

I Hate Mukade

I’ve been told that everything is bigger in Texas.  Well, that is a lie!  Take for instance the various animals that inhabit my area of Japan.  Crows here are simply gigantic, I’ve seen spiders larger than my hand, Japanese hornets are notoriously dangerous and huge, and last, but certainly not least, are the mukade.  What are mukade, you ask.  Why, they’re large centipedes with a poison powerful enough to leave huge welts if your lucky and, I’ve heard, kill small animals or people who are allergic to their venom.  I was cursed with a rather unfortunate placement in Japan, for it seems that these things only exist in the lower half of Kyushu.  Enjoy some pictures.

I apologize for not having a picture where it's flush against the ruler, but it was suffering the effects of a powerful poison at the time.  Still, you can see that it's easily 11cm.  This is one of the larger ones that's gotten into my house, but is by no means the largest I've seen.  I've read they can grow up to 20cm.

A size comparison I think most of my friends would appreciate.  When I showed my kids these pictures, they asked if it was my pet.  I have no idea what they were thinking.  Mukade are only a problem during the summer months, especially during the rainy season when the poison around my house tends to wash away.  I've yet to be bitten by one of these things, but I have found several in my room and a few in my bed, which I check every night before turning in. 

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into one of the more unpleasant realities of life abroad.  In all honesty, if houses here were better insulated, had double pane windows, etc. mukade would be no less trouble than the average house pest.  As it is, they get in so frequently that they necessitate an all out war against them.  So far, I'm winning and I hope it stays that way.

How To Get Japanese Kids To Say They're Sorry

Recently, I’ve been staying at school well past my clock out time of four in order to practice tennis with my first graders. Those of you who know me may be scratching your heads wondering why I’m putting in so much time to play sports and of all things why I chose tennis, a sport that I literally began playing only a few weeks ago. The short answer is because it’s fun and I like spending time with my kids. The long answer, and the insane amount of practice my kids do, is the subject of this entry.

In Japan, students are responsible for keeping their homerooms, and the school as a whole, clean. It’s part of the moral and societal aspect of the students' education, raising them to be upstanding Japanese citizens. Teachers take part in the cleaning, too, and I am no exception. However, as I have no homeroom to speak of, I try to spend equal amounts of time with all six classes at my junior high school. Cleaning time is a great opportunity to surprise my kids with some unrehearsed English speaking practice. I often announce myself as I come into the room, telling the students that I’m there to help and asking what job I can do. More often than not, I am met with blank stares. In fact, I’ve had some students literally collapse to the ground, muttering how they can’t speak English (in English mind you).

There are some exceptions though; students who will try and talk with me despite their lack of confidence. One such student is Tsukasa, who I first met as a second grader last year. In terms of conversational ability, I’d have to say Tsukasa is one of my strongest students. Not because she knows the most English or because her pronunciation is perfect, but because she doesn’t quit when something unexpected or difficult comes up. She tries gestures or drawings when she can’t explain some concept to me. It also helps that she genuinely loves English and actually enjoys learning and speaking it. Along with Shiori and Risa, my two soyokaze kids, Tsukasa was one of the first students whose name I committed to memory. She also happens to play tennis, so when I had free time during recess, I would go watch her practice.

Then something kind of strange happened. As I became more and more familiar with individual students and their abilities and interests, I started to realize that my really strong English students are all members of the tennis team. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. After all, it goes without saying that none of my really good boys are on the all-girl tennis team. Still, if I had to pick out a group of my best students, a good number of them would be tennis players. I have a few theories as to why this may be, but suffice to say I began spending more and more time with those students, even staying after school a few times to watch them practice. Speaking with the tennis team third graders was easy and it was good practice for them. Furthermore, I knew I was interacting with some of the few students who may actually go on to seriously study English in high school.

Another rather fortuitous thing occurred while I was talking to my JTE about practicing with the tennis team. At this point, I had spent an afternoon training with the first graders and was considering going again. As it happens, my JTE was also a rather skilled tennis player during her junior high and high school days (the evidence for some correlation is really mounting here). She not only spoke with the tennis coach to see if I could practice with the first graders, but lent me her racket as well. And with that, I began playing tennis.

A brief aside, if I may, as to the insane nature of exercising with the tennis team. Every day after school, the first graders run ten times around the track at the school. They then do 20 pushups, 30 sit-ups, 30 squats, bear crawls (forward and backward), and several rounds of jumping over small hurdles. It’s also worth noting that, aside from the three-member music club, tennis is the least demanding school activity. Once they've finished all those exercises, they start actually practicing tennis. To date, I have yet to complete this exercise regiment in its entirety, usually having to stop and rest once we start the jumping. I feel bad, not only because I can’t keep up with my kids, but also because I feel like I might be letting them down by not finishing.

Good as the exercise is for me, it’s not the reason I keep going to practice. I just really enjoy interacting with my kids. There have been several really amusing moments during practice where I’ll hear two students discussing how to say something in English. I don’t think they’ve caught on to the fact that I can understand about half of what they say. They really do try and use English around me, which is adorable. They’ve helped count my exercises in English and keep saying they’re sorry when they make a mistake. For those who have never watched Japanese kids practice, they tend to say “gomen” a lot. My kids are no exception. Whatever the error, be it a misplaced serve or a ball lobbed a bit too high I’ll hear an “I’m sorry” every time.

Class Report: How many (Part 2)

Last week’s class was a bit of a challenge. It wasn’t because of the kids. In fact, I’m so thankful that they’re as energetic and excited as they are, otherwise it could have been a complete disaster. We are still on the “How Many” chapter, this time studying 11-20, which is a lot harder than 1-10. The reasons for this are many: 11-20 has a lot more multi-syllable words, 13 and 14 are difficult for Japanese speakers to pronounce, and it’s less likely that students have had exposure to these numbers beforehand.

Class began with another cultural exchange game, this time showing the differences between how Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and American people write tick marks for counting. Turns out all three countries besides America use the kanji 正 as opposed to the American style of four vertical lines slashed through with a diagonal. There was a bit of confusion on the kids’ part as to what in the book they needed to be counting, but once I clarified, everyone did really well.

Next we drilled the numbers 11-20. Drills are my least favorite part of class, but they’re necessary for the kids to pick up new words or phrases. Once I felt that most of the class had grasped the concept, we moved on to a connect-the-dots game. The students had to listen to my directions to know the next dot to move too. I said each number, waited, then pointed to that number on the board for the students who were having trouble. The puzzle was fairly simple and symmetrical, so about halfway through several students started saying the next number in English. I started asking the kids which number was next to get more speaking practice in.

The last game was the most difficult to explain. There were two charts in the students’ books that each had fifteen boxes. The students put numbers from 1-20 in the boxes then went around the room playing janken with other kids. The winner of each game got to say a number, and both students could circle it if they had it. I was pleasantly surprised to see several students asking for help from me and the JTE rather than just using Japanese, which is what usually happens.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish even the first game. Many of my students were sad, saying things like “No time over” which was both adorable and heartbreaking. I don’t have many classes that are as excited as this one to learn English, or at the very least to play the games. It makes me happy that they want to keep going even after nearly an hour of class. We told them that the next class would start with game two. It should be a nice review for them. I only hope that Rino, who I noticed was absent, isn’t overwhelmed.

Class Report: How Many (Part 1)

Another week has past and it’s time to catch up with what my fifth graders at Urawa have been learning this week.  I realized looking over my last few reports that I’ve been focusing on the same class and see no reason to deviate from that pattern.  I have a fair bit more control in this class, as my JTE speaks very little English and is new to teaching herself, so I feel a greater sense of responsibility for how the class is run and how well the students do.  Honestly, though, most other schools are running through the same lessons, so doing this kind of entry for each one would be a bit redundant.  However, look forward to a similar entry in the near future featuring the writings of my junior high students.

Oftentimes, my classes are expected to fill the role of an intercultural exchange class, as opposed to a strictly English one.  As such, we started yesterday’s class by explaining that the game “janken” is called “rock, paper, scissors” in America.  We had been using “American janken” to determine speaking and turn order for the last few weeks, so my kids were already pretty familiar with it.  We then introduced two other country’s versions of janken: Korea and China.  The differences mostly consist of what words are said before choosing rock, paper, or scissors.  The hand shapes, advantages, and disadvantages all stay the same.  After we practiced each country’s janken a few times, we had all the kids stand up and walk around the room.  They could choose to play any of the four types of janken we had learned.  While most stuck with Japanese and English, the ones they were most familiar with, I heard a few try the others as well.  The game continued, with the losers sitting down, until there were only two or three students left.  We then had those students come to the front, chose a country, and they all had to do that one for the final game.  My kids really seemed to enjoy this, asking to play again and again.  We played three games total.

The next activity was a bit more difficult.  There was a page in their book with six different students, each from a different country.  We listened to a CD of each one counting and the students had to guess which number went with which person.  My kids all did okay considering they had no context to draw from and were left to guess on a good number of them.  It also doesn’t help that I said the wrong country for one of the six.  Nor does it help that the CD that accompanies the book has a boy reading the Spanish numbers where the book clearly shows a girl.  As I said, most kids did well.  I read out the answers then asked for a show of hands for who got the American numbers correct.  All my kids had.  This segued nicely into the last part of the lesson, teaching the numbers 1-10. 

I really enjoy teaching how to count to ten, and I use the same method whether I’m teaching a first grade class or a fifth grade one.  I start by writing the song “Ten Steps” on the board.  It looks like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10
8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I drill the numbers once or twice then sing the song to get the kids familiar with the rhythm.  I get everyone to stand up, and we practice together a few times.  Then I erase one of the numbers, I usually start with six, and replace it with a picture of hands clapping.  I explain that sixes are now handclaps and we don’t say six anymore.  After a few times singing it that way, I erase another number and replace it with a different action.  I always ask my kids which number I should erase for the third one, and usually I don’t get any response, but yesterday I received a very enthusiastic “3!” from Riko.  The fourth choice had to go to a vote because so many kids were shouting out numbers.  It made me very happy to get such an energetic reaction from the kids, who were also really happy when they finished up the last round of counting, clapping, desk tapping, high-fiving, stomping fun.  The reason I like teaching numbers this way is that it’s really active and the song gets stuck in the students’ heads, so it’s also really effective.

Next week, we’ll tackle 11-20, which has always been a bit more difficult for my students to grasp.  Stay tuned to find out how it goes.