Well, let’s see. Last time I updated, I had gone through 1 day of school. I hadn’t actually taught any classes, just given a short speech in Japanese to the students. Now, though, I actually have a few classes under my belt. A few.
Tuesday, I had no classes at the jr high, but I had my first stint at the elementary school. This is actually the harder of the two schools; in junior high, I serve as an aide. I read things aloud, I make worksheets occasionally – but in elementary, I’m responsible for the whole lesson. What’s more, the language gap is even more severe, and the homeroom teachers know very little English. So, I was expecting my first visit to Higashi Elementary School to be, well, disastrous.
Overall, though, it went alright. When I arrived, I met a woman there who I honestly have to say is the best non-native speaker of English in Kitakawabe. She is the teacher for grades 5 and 6 at the elementary schools; I would be put in charge of grades 1-4. For my first day, though, she was here to help me out. And she did help me out, aiding me in putting together a coherent lesson and helping translate between the teachers, the students, and me. She sort of took control of the lesson, actually. Oh well, at least the children were able to understand me.
Wednesday and Thursday, I had my first few classes at the junior high school. These were much less nerve-wracking, as I had them with teachers who had a decent grasp of English and who mostly controlled the lessons. I don’t think I’ve actually met all my students, yet, even a week and a half in. The grouping of students is complicated and I still haven’t completely figured it out; I just follow teachers who tell me to come to class with them. They’re still ironing out my schedule.
All the classes I’ve been in so far tend to be introductions. I have a short speech prepared about who I am, where I’m from, what my hometown/state is famous for (I said “Coca-Cola, peaches, and famous baseball team Atlanta Braves” – they love baseball around here.) and so on. Then, the teacher either moves on to a lesson they’ve already prepared or we do a Q&A with the students that lasts all period. Some of the questions are a little odd (“What is your favorite fruit?” “What is your favorite food on the McDonalds menu?” “Who do you think is the best-looking guy in the class?” and this last one spoken in English, “What did you think of Brokeback Mountain?”) Also, every class tends to ask if I have a girlfriend, but I hear that’s a pretty normal question for ALTs. Unless, of course, the ALT is female, in which case they’re asked if they have a boyfriend.
The lessons have mostly been in Japanese, with me occasionally being asked to read something aloud or help the children review with flash cards. One story that I’ve read to the class is fairly infamous among ALTs – it’s about a girl who loses her parents in Hiroshima, and then dies a week later of radiation poisoning. Yeah, cheerful stuff, eh? I wonder if they planned it out so that American ALTs would read the story aloud.
As I’m being introduced to hundreds of students, 30 at a time, I can’t quite say I have names down just yet. There are a couple of students I recognize – one girl I call Velma in my mind because she’s got rockin’ orange glasses, and that makes me think of Velma from Scooby Doo. Also, there’s one student, a seventh-grader, who spent four years in Michigan, so he is probably the best English speaker in Kitakawabe besides me. I like talking to him, not only cause he’s a cool little dude, but because talking to people who don’t understand you can get unnerving. A conversation in regular English with someone who’s a near-native speaker is wonderful.
My Japanese is progressing slowly… very slowly. For all the immersion I have in going to the store, working among Japanese people, and everything else, I also spend a lot of time on the internet, which is usually all in English. (Google and LastFM have reverted to Japanese in some cases, and that’s obnoxious. My grasp of katakana and hiragana – two of the written alphabets of Japanese – is getting better, I’ll say that.)
Friday was interesting because of one word: typhoon. As I discovered when my coworkers were watching weather reports on Thursday, “typhoon” in Japan means “hurricane” in America! School was cancelled, but… well, guess who had to show up anyway? I can now actually say that I have biked through a hurricane. (It was basically just rain. Most of the wind had blown itself out overnight, and the morning was just the leftovers. Still. Biking through a hurricane, rah.) I also didn’t get to visit the other elementary school where I’ll be teaching (closed because of typhoon weather) so I still don’t know what to expect there.
I had a very slow, relaxing weekend this past weekend, just staying in and sleeping and doing very little of anything at all. My next weekend is going to be on an odd schedule! All this week, the students are training for “sports day” on Saturday. I can’t tell if it’s more like a field day or more like a multi-school meet, but I guess I’ll find out. Sometimes we play relay games (which the kids always try to make me join) and sometimes the students are separated by gender to do gender-specific exercises. I saw the boys making formations that were not unlike cheerleading formations. I didn’t see the girls practice, but I assumed they must be playing American football in the gym.
(I found out later that the girls are doing dance routines. Still, I couldn’t pass that joke up.)
Next weekend, the big plan is to go to Tokyo. I may well meet up with some of the other Heart School ALTs, which would be fantastic. Hopefully, I can figure out how the trains work before then!
Finally, yesterday (Tuesday) marked my second visit to the Higashi elementary school. This time, I had the help of one of the parents, who had been hired part-time at the school to help translate for me. I was prepared for the same lesson that I had taught last week to the 3rd graders, but this time the 4th graders didn’t have the materials that I’d used with the previous classes, so I had to improvise. I grabbed my juggling balls out of my bookbag and started tossing them to students, asking them to repeat a phrase that I’d taught them. (These were general, well-known phrases like “good morning,” “good night,” “how are you,” etc.) It went well enough in the first class (those kids LOVED the juggling balls), but with the second class I ended up finishing my lesson very early, and so I did some geography lessons as well, with the map up on the board. The school has since told me they want me to submit lesson plans ahead of time. Doh.
Well, that’s how things are going so far. Without further ado, here are some pictures! (click for big)
My apartment. It’s not usually this messy, I promise.
The view of the train station from my apartment. I can basically just walk there.
My junior high school. I took this picture on a Sunday so there are no kids around.
This is what about 75% of Kitakawabe looks like. Rice fields everywhere!
I just took this picture because it was idyllic. Look at the guy fishing!
The room in which I spend most of my time. The guy in the back there is Kyoto-sensei, who is I believe a vice principal.
And that's all folks!
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