This was a while back, not Easter time as it should have been, but back in May never-the-less. I had bought a ton of Easter eggs at great difficulty and confusion, especially when the teacher insisted on paying me back but I couldn't find the receipt. I eventually got 100 very expensive plastic shells. The goal was to hide them around the school and then have one student know the location and guide the other student.
This seemed like a good idea at the time.
Despite that foreshadow, it didn't go so bad. Unfortunately, I had to teach them how to tell directions, do an example activity where I had one student tell a second student how to walk to a third student's desk, and then actually do the activity all in a mere 50 (or sometimes 45) minutes.
The classes were still jumbled up, so half of the classes were doing the email activity, while the other half were doing the Easter eggs. So I had to hide them twice.
While we were doing the activity, apparently some of the eggs disappeared. I managed to get some of them back when I discovered that some of the third years had accidentally taken some, but some still remain missing.
It was exactly as I had predicted - chaos. After rapidly explaining the terms and doing a demonstration, we only had a little time. I had hidden five eggs of different colors in ten locations, thus giving fifty numbers. I had the students pair up and designated one to be the walker and one to give the commands. I told the commander where to go and showed a picture of the location to make sure. Then the group went on their way to find the egg, get the number, and write it on a chart on the board. In later classes, it was my hope that they could get enough eggs to solve how I had numbered them, but there was never enough time or effort or understanding on their part.
Because they were outside and I was busy trying to dish out the next location constantly, I can't be sure they used English. The principal was willing to help and we hid some eggs in his office. Unfortunately, the students apparently used Japanese from what he reported.
At any rate, I enjoyed the chaos, and hopefully it became a memorable event for the students.
Later I reused the Easter eggs for ESS with actual chocolate in them. This time I just generally hid them. I also used the extra large eggs I called mega-eggs that came with the set I bought to hide 3x the chocolate. The second years were busy with the teacher about the guests coming in a few weeks, and the first years looked bored so I sent them ahead. Eventually, the second years were also released. I walked around giving out clues, but not all the eggs were found, and apparently a few were claimed by ants.
By the time I got back to the room we were using, the teacher exploded on the students for never using English or making her do all the work or some combination of that. Her Japanese devolved into heavy Yamaguchi accent and I couldn't understand her at all. The students all stared down at their feet, waiting for the barrage to end. One of the first years had been thinking about quitting, and the teacher had told me earlier she was afraid it would cause an exodus, but she suddenly targeted that student and told her over and over to say what she thought about the club and started saying that she said something about the club that the girl had to claim wasn't how she felt, but the teacher just forcing her to say bad things about the club. I wanted to step in and stop her, but I also didn't completely understand the situation and I didn't want to make things worse.
Fortunately, even though she repeatedly claimed she didn't care if everyone quit, everyone didn't. After she left, the students deliberated for like an hour. I sat and watched, but I couldn't understand everything. A few did decide to quit, but most stayed.
Despite their resolution to apologize in English, as well as my recommendation to do so, they didn't. No English was spoken that day.
The apology also took forever, so I ended up staying at work rather late.
The club seems to be using a lot more English now, so I guess things worked out. They are now, somewhat ironically, working on translating a book on sign language.
If they don't learn English, maybe they'll learn ASL instead.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Dial-Down
Contrary to what you might believe, the majority of Japan doesn't understand or like technology. When you realize that 40% of the population is over 65, you start to realize that even something as simple as sending an email is beyond most of the people living here.
But I figured at least high schoolers would know!
I was sorely disappointed.
Through some great difficulty, I was finally able to get all the classes on the same page with themselves, but then one of the classes got moved because of something and the whole schedule got jumbled in a new way.
I had come up with an idea. I figured American pen pals would be the coolest thing ever. The students could write an email in English, get an English one back, and the American could get the same practice in Japanese. This seemed like a good idea. However, the teachers were cautious. They asked what if the students didn't have email addresses. This was baffling to me. I checked the calendar to make sure we were, in fact, living in 2013.
Through some difficulty and confusion, I was able to track down some American pen pals. Some. Unfortunately, as I had realized, finding 161 students to reply to mine would be difficult. So we formed groups. Giant groups.
I rapidly realized just how low tech non-Tokyo Japan is when I asked who had an email address. In a class of 40, I couldn't even guarantee 5. I was baffled.
Most of them had smart phones, which in a country outside of Japan, comes with a full-fledged email address if you don't already have one. Not Japanese phones apparently. They can't be logged in to from outside the phone and no one knows the login info anyway.
The other difficulty was the fact that to the Japanese "email" means you use your phone, it's their equivalent to texting. They don't send emails from their computers. There are still businesses in Japan that don't own a single computer. People still use fax machines here. Fax machines!
I had hope for the new generation, but it was quickly dashed. We stuffed them into groups based on who had an email address and I tried to dish out email addresses for them.
They took forever to send their emails and when the Americans didn't reply the next day, some of them began asking me why they didn't reply as if they didn't realize it took them two weeks to write their own.
I'm curious if any of them carried on some kind of correspondence, but my hopes are as high as the bulk of the Japanese people's knowledge of technology.
Classic Complications
As far as Minami classes have been so far, we've had a lot of fun. And a lot of complications.
As the new year started, I did my obligatory self-introduction. At the other schools, I forewent the presentation and asked them what they wanted to know. The short answer - nothing. At Minami, I gave my presentation, and then at the end of class, I gave a speech in Japanese about not fearing mistakes, their biggest problem. Hearing me suddenly speak Japanese surprised some of them. I didn't want to reveal my abilities, but I also didn't want to spend the rest of my time standing in front of a crowd of people that know the answer, but won't even say "yes". Unfortunately, this caused a lot of the students to try to talk to me in Japanese ever since and didn't really make them less quiet. Also, by my third and fourth times, I really botched up the speech and started talking in circles. Maybe it had some impression on someone. Maybe.
I decided to have the new students do their own self-introductions. In a moment of brilliance, I decided to try to teach the students about American school. So even though we had the classes split in half as a new system we just implemented, I had them all gather up so I could do a PowerPoint. Mostly they didn't understand and it was probably a waste of time. This cut our class time dramatically. After the presentation, one of the teachers took half the students to the rest of their room to finish the schedule.
Except there were two things left to do, and time for barely one. I had decided it was best to try to weed out some common mistakes early. So I made a presentation about common mistakes. This was next on our list, followed by preparations for the students to make their own self-introductions.
I knew the other teacher would do the preparations first and I should have just followed suit, but I went ahead and did the mistakes instead. This caused our schedule to become shuffled for the next month and then some. It didn't cause anything catastrophic, but it was annoying planning for two sets of classes and remembering who did what when. Especially with two weeks of breaks in between for whatever reason.
The presentations were pretty boring. Especially because they all misinterpreted "something interesting about me" to mean "something I am interested in" which basically boils down to a K-Pop band or Justin Bieber / One Direction.
I gave the students the opportunity to pick their own English names, but instead they simply wrote down their own names. Some of the more creative students added "chan" to their name, and the really creative 1% came up with nicknames. Unfortunately, they never used these names again. Some of them that wrote down their own names even continued to use the other half of their name so it was completely useless. I foolishly made my name chart based on the names they choose, so when they turned in homework, it was rather difficult to figure out who was who.
I also, for some reason, decided to do a less on waseieigo and teach them that not every katakana word is perfect English. Unfortunately, this turned out to not have that much to do with English, but it was kind of interesting none-the-less. Hopefully.
The kids might not have learned a lot of English, but at least they learned some Japanese.
As the new year started, I did my obligatory self-introduction. At the other schools, I forewent the presentation and asked them what they wanted to know. The short answer - nothing. At Minami, I gave my presentation, and then at the end of class, I gave a speech in Japanese about not fearing mistakes, their biggest problem. Hearing me suddenly speak Japanese surprised some of them. I didn't want to reveal my abilities, but I also didn't want to spend the rest of my time standing in front of a crowd of people that know the answer, but won't even say "yes". Unfortunately, this caused a lot of the students to try to talk to me in Japanese ever since and didn't really make them less quiet. Also, by my third and fourth times, I really botched up the speech and started talking in circles. Maybe it had some impression on someone. Maybe.
I decided to have the new students do their own self-introductions. In a moment of brilliance, I decided to try to teach the students about American school. So even though we had the classes split in half as a new system we just implemented, I had them all gather up so I could do a PowerPoint. Mostly they didn't understand and it was probably a waste of time. This cut our class time dramatically. After the presentation, one of the teachers took half the students to the rest of their room to finish the schedule.
Except there were two things left to do, and time for barely one. I had decided it was best to try to weed out some common mistakes early. So I made a presentation about common mistakes. This was next on our list, followed by preparations for the students to make their own self-introductions.
I knew the other teacher would do the preparations first and I should have just followed suit, but I went ahead and did the mistakes instead. This caused our schedule to become shuffled for the next month and then some. It didn't cause anything catastrophic, but it was annoying planning for two sets of classes and remembering who did what when. Especially with two weeks of breaks in between for whatever reason.
The presentations were pretty boring. Especially because they all misinterpreted "something interesting about me" to mean "something I am interested in" which basically boils down to a K-Pop band or Justin Bieber / One Direction.
I gave the students the opportunity to pick their own English names, but instead they simply wrote down their own names. Some of the more creative students added "chan" to their name, and the really creative 1% came up with nicknames. Unfortunately, they never used these names again. Some of them that wrote down their own names even continued to use the other half of their name so it was completely useless. I foolishly made my name chart based on the names they choose, so when they turned in homework, it was rather difficult to figure out who was who.
I also, for some reason, decided to do a less on waseieigo and teach them that not every katakana word is perfect English. Unfortunately, this turned out to not have that much to do with English, but it was kind of interesting none-the-less. Hopefully.
The kids might not have learned a lot of English, but at least they learned some Japanese.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Third Time's a 茶rm
For the third time this year, we had guests. Apparently, the first time we had guests this year was the first time ever, so it's interesting that in such a short time our school has become so apparently international.
Unlike the second time, I had nothing to do with these guests. And, like the first time, no one told me anything. But it didn't seem as bad because no one else knew anything either. We knew they were coming from America, but that was about it. It was baffling to me that even days before they were coming, no one seemed to know anything.
This time we had a lot more guests. However, they were only staying for a day. Apparently, their stays at other schools during that trip were longer. At least unlike the last group, they were staying for more than a day and going to other schools and stuff.
The students were broken up and sent to various classrooms. The ESS members each paired up with a student and led them around.
Fortunately, I didn't have to do anything, so I just let the students carry on with their project and walked around and tried to get the students to try and communicate with their guests, who sometimes looked incredibly bored. The students were working on their three-week long travel agent project we started when the first American group visited. They basically spent the whole time trying to draw posters.
Some of the groups were more successful, and there was a lot of laughter. Some of them even helped draw the posters.
Then we ended everything, as we always do, with some koto and a tea ceremony.
Unlike the second time, I had nothing to do with these guests. And, like the first time, no one told me anything. But it didn't seem as bad because no one else knew anything either. We knew they were coming from America, but that was about it. It was baffling to me that even days before they were coming, no one seemed to know anything.
This time we had a lot more guests. However, they were only staying for a day. Apparently, their stays at other schools during that trip were longer. At least unlike the last group, they were staying for more than a day and going to other schools and stuff.
The students were broken up and sent to various classrooms. The ESS members each paired up with a student and led them around.
Fortunately, I didn't have to do anything, so I just let the students carry on with their project and walked around and tried to get the students to try and communicate with their guests, who sometimes looked incredibly bored. The students were working on their three-week long travel agent project we started when the first American group visited. They basically spent the whole time trying to draw posters.
Some of the groups were more successful, and there was a lot of laughter. Some of them even helped draw the posters.
Then we ended everything, as we always do, with some koto and a tea ceremony.
Weyajima
Miyajima was supposed to be a fun trip. It was another trip with my (now) ex-girlfriend. I took the day off from work to go. Unfortunately, fighting the night before and then towards the end caused some trouble in the end, but during the actual time at Miyajima it was fun for me at least. I had hoped to also go to Iwakuni's famous bridge, something I had been meaning to do back when I was dating the girl in Iwakuni and foolishly thought we could just go whenever, but instead of taking the train, we drove there, and by the time we were leaving, my driver was pretty angry and just wanted to go home as fast as she could.
There's not much to explain, so I'll just post pictures. You need to ferry out to the island. If you come at the right time, the tide will be low enough for you to walk over to the torii gate. I got a little wet, but I was able to reach it. But by the time we were leaving, it was low tide.
Yes, pictures.
Apparently the ferry is run by one of the train companies. They have the same ticket and ticket machines and everything.
There were a few deer, but unlike Nara, they tell you not to pet them.
I was basically forced to take my picture like a tourist with the people dressed up.
Deer swarm.
The male priest apparently wore the blue version of the outfit. The females had the red I was familiar with.
I won the worst luck award!
I slowly made my way over the thousands of shellfish to the shrine.
And even walked through it.
Then I went to see the two pagodas.
A deer ate part of the wrapper for my sister's present suddenly.
Then we went back.
But before I could get home, she got really mad at me and dumped me off at a train station presumably closer to her house than mine. At least the view was nice.
There's not much to explain, so I'll just post pictures. You need to ferry out to the island. If you come at the right time, the tide will be low enough for you to walk over to the torii gate. I got a little wet, but I was able to reach it. But by the time we were leaving, it was low tide.
Yes, pictures.
Apparently the ferry is run by one of the train companies. They have the same ticket and ticket machines and everything.
There were a few deer, but unlike Nara, they tell you not to pet them.
I was basically forced to take my picture like a tourist with the people dressed up.
Deer swarm.
The male priest apparently wore the blue version of the outfit. The females had the red I was familiar with.
I won the worst luck award!
I slowly made my way over the thousands of shellfish to the shrine.
And even walked through it.
Then I went to see the two pagodas.
A deer ate part of the wrapper for my sister's present suddenly.
Then we went back.
But before I could get home, she got really mad at me and dumped me off at a train station presumably closer to her house than mine. At least the view was nice.
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