School festival day 1

We went to the old people’s home and the students danced for them. I loved the line up of old ladies in their hats.

生徒はおばあちゃんとおじいちゃんの前に踊った。　おばあちゃんのぼしはかわいい。

I got the picture of them throwing water balloons at each other.

水風船の写真ができた！

Many of my kids watched the dress-like-a-guy/girl show through their camera screens.

たくさん生徒はカメラから見た。

Dinner time! We made yakiniku (Japanese BBQ).

夕食の時間。焼肉を食べた。

A man came and did rakugo for us. Unfortunately, I was super sleepy, which made listening super hard.

落語した人来た。私はとても眠たいから、聞くこと難しかった。

Then there was bon-odori dancing.

その後に盆踊り。

Last, fireworks!

最後は花火！

The first day of the festival was a lot of fun.

学校祭の1日目は楽しかった。

The good thing about genkans …

The good thing about genkans (Japanese-style entryways) is on a rainy day, the floors inside the school are completely dry. 

玄関のいい事は雨の日に学校の中に干ている。

It rained really hard this morning.

今朝にとても雨が降っていた。

But inside the school is dry. 

学校の中に雨が降った事見えない。

June Photo Challenge Day 2

June 2: First things

６月２日：最初の事

Today was the Junior High School’s Sports day. Before any of the sports began, we did ‘rajio taiso,’ which is a Japanese-style warm-up.

今日は運動会があった。　最初はラジオ体操した。

Everyone got to pick a kanji to put on the back of their Tshirt. These two friends, picked the two kanji in ‘friend’ so that when they stand together their shirts say friend.

みんなはTシャツの後ろの漢字が選んだ。　この２人は友と達が選んだ。　一緒に友達になる！

Fever or hot, if I understood correctly, it’s because she has a warm heart, though that may have been lost in translation.

熱。

My team, the red team!

私の組は赤組！

I like taking jumping photos – it’s a fun challenge to try and get the timing right.

跳ぶの写真は楽しい！正しい時に撮ることは難しくて、いいチャレンジだよ！

I laughed when I saw this part of the obstacle & relay race. Two students have to get in a cardboard box and move to the end of their part of the relay.

びっくりした！ダンボールに速い動いている！

The tunnel race. It always looks like a lot of fun!

トンネルの。いつも楽しそう！

After sports day, we had party for the teachers. It was a lot of fun, though I was both happy and embarrassed when a teacher picked me as an MVP for taking photos and went on to say he thinks my photos are better than the town photographers!

運動会の後にえんかいがあった！みんなはMVPの人が言った。１つ先生は私と言った。写真撮るから。そして、彼は私の方が町の写真館より上手と言った。とてもびっくり。うれしくて恥ずかしかった！

Fun moments in the classroom

In Japan, students and their teachers eat lunch in the classroom. It’s a fun time to get to chat with the students about whatever is going on and usually a good chance to practice my Japanese.

日本では生徒と先生と教室に給食を食べる。生徒と話したながら、日本語を練習した。 楽しい給食時間を過ごした！

Yesterday, I walked in to the 2nd year classroom (where I eat my lunch), and one of my students was singing my name, “Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca!” I didn’t know why, but it made me laugh.

昨日２年生の教室へ行ってから、１人生徒は自分の名前が歌った、「レベッカ、レベッカ、レベッカ」。なぜか分からなかったけど、びっくりから、私は笑った。

After a few times of this, I decided that if he was going to be silly, I could be too. So I started singing his name back to him, “D~, D~, D~.” He got a laugh out of that, too.

数回の後、その面白かったら、私もできる。　だから、私もその生徒の名前を歌った、「D～、D～、D～」。　彼も笑った。

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The second year teachers!

２年生の先生たち。

多分よく間違ったから、教えてください！

Welcome party!

Today was the entrance ceremony for the new 1st year students at the junior high school. In Japan, the elementary students don’t wear school uniforms, so I’ve seen them lots of times in regular clothes, but not looking so spiffy in their uniforms.

今日中学で入学式。　日本には小学生は制服が着ないから、毎年新しい１年生がかわいいと思う。

This evening we had a welcome party for the new teachers. Mr. I read information about the new teachers and we had to guess which teacher’s info he was reading. It was fun getting to talk with the new teachers and the ones who had been around for a while.

夕方に新しい先生のため歓迎会があった。I先生は新しい先生の自己紹介から読んだ。　私たちはどちらと答えた。　新しい先生と去年にいた先生と会話が楽しかった。

One of my favorite things at these kinds of parties is once the teachers start drinking, even a little, how much random English comes out.

えんかいで先生は飲むたびに、たくさん英語できる。びっくり！

At the end we took a picture. The first one was relatively normal. But this one shows more of the attitude of the evening.

最後に写真を撮った。　最少のは普通けど、この写真はえんかいの気持ちのほうが近い。

Totally irrelevant to the rest of the post, I started a new crochet project today!

入学式とえんかい以外は今日新しいかぎばりあみのプロジェクを始まった。

Community

In Japan, teachers move every few years to a new placement and to teach new students. It’s always sad saying goodbye to teachers I’ve gotten to know over the year.

日本には、先生たちはよく引っ越す。いつも「さよなら」と言うことはさみしい。

But, one of the things I love about the time when the teachers move, is that often many community members will come out to help.

でも、引っ越すの好きな事はたくさん人手伝いに来る。

On Monday T-sensei was leaving. She’s a single, female teacher with plenty of stuff to move, but not so many people to help her. Many students who probably had her as a math teacher came to help, in fact, most of them were high school students, rather than her current junior high students.

月曜日にT先生は引っ越した。彼女は１人だけ。たくさん荷物があるけど、手伝う人がいない。T先生は中学の先生けど、高校生いっぱい手伝いに来た。

I’m always amazed at how a whole apartment ends up fitting in a truck!

１台トラックにできた。

Today another teacher moved out and another in. They both didn’t have very much stuff, so the whole group didn’t need to come and help.

今日他の２人は引っ越した。両方荷物あまりないから、みんなは行かなかった。

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Also, my list of things to photograph while in Japan is here. If you have any other ideas, feel free to let me know what else I should add : )

私の日本に住んでいる時に写真を撮りたいリストはここ。 他の写真を撮るの考えがあったら、コメントをしてください！

Photo Challenge Day 22 & World Water Day

March 22: Rule of Thirds/World Water Day 2013

This is me filling up a water bottle, with water that is clean and so simply comes from my sink. I don’t have to worry about going long distances to get water, or getting sick from the water I can get.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for a large part of the world's population. 20,000 people die everyday from diarrhoea everyday – something people rarely die from in the part of the world where we live. Since 1990, 523 million people have gained access to clean water. (Information from this article).

Why is it that where one is born controls so much of this? When we have so much extra why aren’t we making choices to help those who are stuck with this reality everyday?

If you’re interested in being a part of the solution, water.org, Compassion International and World Vision all have programs intended to help end the problem of access to clean water and sanitation for people in these places.

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Today was the last day of school for the school year. School was short and simple today. Cleaning time, closing ceremony and a ceremony announcing which teachers were leaving and a chance for the students to say goodbye.

One of the more hilarious moments today was when we were waiting for the closing ceremony to begin. My JTE and one of the other teachers were talking. I glance over in time to see the other teacher lift the leg of his pants to show my JTE that he had “tights” (like leggings) on underneath his suit pants. My JTE lifts up his pants leg to show that he has hairy legs that keep him warm. The other teacher looks at me and says “natural tights.”

After all the ceremonies were over, I went out for lunch with my two JTEs and one of the teachers who was leaving. It was a lot of fun to get to chat and just hang out with these people I work with everyday.

Of course, the day ended with the Sobetsukai (Farewell Party) for the teachers who are leaving – 2 teachers, the office manager (like a head secretary at an American school, and the principal (he’s retiring).

Photo Challenge Day 4

March 4: Out of Focus

I’ve been using this a lot recently for a project I’m working on.

What do you think it is? (comment at the bottom!)

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Today I had a busy, but really fun day.

It started with my last trip to one of my favorite schools for this school year. With the fifth graders we played English Mario Kart and then had a color guessing game. For the sixth grade, my JTE had the kids making posters for their school. For the first to fourth graders it was review day that I totally forgot about because I never teach them on Mondays (luckily I realized this before I left the house this am and was able to start thinking about what to do before I arrived). We did an animal review with a story book, some drawing and then finally played English Mario Kart as well.

After that, I returned to the main part of town for Eikaiwa planning and lunch with the JHS first years. They are a great bunch of kids and the more Japanese I can speak, the easier it is to keep up with lunch time conversation.

When lunch was over, I headed back out to the elementary school for a concert they were having. They had a brass band from Furano come to visit and play (they also played a bit). I always love getting to do something non-English with my kids and get to see the things they are good at – lots of them find English really, really tough.

While I visited, I found this lovely “English” patch on one of my students’ tee shirts. That button on the left is very emotional!

November 2nd

It's November, which means I have exactly 1 month to cram in as much Japanese as I can before my big Japanese test - the JLPT. I have no idea if I'll be able to pass, but I hope so!

In other news, we had a PTA enkai this evening and it was a lot of fun. I got to talk to some of my teachers, and a whole bunch of parents I hadn't met before. Unfortunately, I met so many parents it's unlikely I'm going to remember which kids they go with.

Some iphone fall colors (sorry for the terrible quality). 

A fun prank

Everyday after school, my students clean the school. During that time, my job is essentially to be present. If I offer to help, I'm almost always turned down.

So, I generally make it my job to do ridiculous ALT things.

Today I was closing the door that the students go into to take out the recycling, and then standing in the way of them opening it again - this is a door with clear windows, so the students could quite easily see who was causing trouble. But in true crazy ALT fashion, I pretended not to notice that they were asking me to move out of the way (at least the first time).

The first student had a good laugh. The next made opening motions (and didn't squish my toes trying to open it). The last student was the best though. She is a first year and is generally very shy. She was laughing so hard she almost fell over.

My conclusion is that laughter is our common language.

iPhone antics

Today, I headed in to see what the "Qualification Acquisition club" (such a difficult name!) was up to. There were two students and they were both drawing. I started to talking to them about what they were up to this weekend, their favorite kanji, etc.

When we got to  a word I didn't know, I whipped out the trusty iPhone to look it up. I did and then my student wanted to see it, since she's a high school student and not with a group of crazy students, I decided to let her.

She kept trying to use her finger nail to do things (as did I when I first got it). I explained that you had to use your finger.

Her next question was if it could read finger prints. I told her no, it moved by heat. And when I hadn't wanted to stop what I was doing I had once used my toe to pause/quiet it. Another time, when it was cold and I didn't want to take off my glove, I used my nose.

Next, she wanted to know if a cheek or a chin would work, I told her probably the chin would, but the cheek might be too big. Then she asked about an elbow. I said I didn't know, so we tried it. We rolled up our sleeves and found out that you can control an iPhone with an elbow (in case you wanted to know).

One of the most hilarious moments I've had in that club. My student was laughing so hard and so was I. Great end to a tough day.

I'm on a boat! (In the classroom . . . kind of)

Today my students learned transportation words. Bus, train, subway, bike, car, airplane and ship.

After learning the words. I had to announce that I was on a ____. If the kids had a ticket, they were supposed to give it to me and get in the "boat" with me (two jump ropes tied together). It was quite fun. When we were an airplane, we stuck our arms out; when we were a subway, we got down really low; when we were a bike, we pretended to pedal; and when we were a train, we went really fast.

The best moment, though was when we got to ship. I wanted to announce "I'm on a boat," but realized that wouldn't stick with the vocab that we had been learning, so I announced that I was on a ship, but secretly giggled inside.

Just in case you haven't seen the video that has been giggled at many times by various friends and I, here it is:

Gender Identity In Japanese and Western Culture: The Definitive Something or Other*

Today I spent another day with my Junior High School students. It was a good day. But as I stand there often not involved in classes except to read for the students to repeat (human tape recorder, we call it), I get to observe my students. This is always an interesting way to keep my mind occupied.

As I stand there, I frequently notice that the boys in the class have some very “girly” school supplies. Minnie Mouse Folders, pink pencils and plenty of other things. Why is it that guys in the US think that these types of things would make them less “manly”? Why is it that American society deems these things “girly?” Why do we have to separate things and jobs as feminine or masculine?

The differences continue outside the classroom. Construction equipment here is often cute. Elephants, frogs and monkeys hold up bars to keep people seeing the edge of the road. The lifter things that help people reach power lines, painted like giraffes.Why is it that construction equipment at home is never painted in pastel colors? Or pinks? Or any of the colors we deem “feminine?” Or is it because animals are “childish?” If that’s the case, who quit liking animals after they were an adult?

In the states, we also seem to classify jobs this way. How many male elementary teachers have you met? There are usually one or two at any school, clearly outnumbered. How many women do you know going into computer science? I know a handful, but I know way more men. Why is this? Didn’t God give us each unique talents and abilities? Why would women not be able to do some jobs and men not be able to do others?

I may be crazy to share all of these thoughts, but at home I get annoyed when the boys in the classroom think they can’t be good at reading or writing because they’re “girl subjects” (or sometimes even school at all), or when a girl thinks she can’t be good at math or science because they’re “boy subjects.” Students seem to choose this way of thinking all the time (or did when I was subbing).

I’m not trying to say that women should be better than men at everything or vice versa. I just get annoyed with the way we box things into gender. Why are school supplies, colors, school subjects and professions categorized into genders? They have no gender. They’re inanimate objects.

Will we ever be able to disconnect these things from gender? Would lifting these boxes that we have put ourselves and those around us in change anything? I’m not sure. I would hope that it would make everyone help to be themselves. Help them to dress in the colors they want to. Help them to do a job they love rather than shying away from it because it’s not something they should be doing.

*Title thanks to: Elizabeth, author of Futons, Fish, and Ferries and one of my regular blog editors

English Class today

Today I got to visit what is probably my favorite school, mostly because when I go, I get to spend the entire day at the school and really get to know the kids (which is incredible). The students are one sixth-grade boy, two third graders (girl and boy), three third graders (2 boys and one girl), two second grade girls, and two first-grade girls. They are an insanely fun group.

I was informed about the English lesson moments before going into the classroom. The teacher wanted me to pronounce the cards with the animals on them and then read the story. That got my brain going. If I was going to read this story, which the students weren’t likely to understand all the words to, how was I going to keep them engaged? (Keeping students engaged is always a big question for me, because it cuts down on management problems).

We got into the classroom and I asked, “How are you?”, “How’s the weather?”, “What’s the date today?” (the regular set of questions). As usual, most of the students do not know the month to be able to say the date. I have one third grader who seems to be particularly gifted in English who can almost always answer the question (maybe he studies at home?).

Then we pronounced the words, kids repeated (pretty standard way to start). After some questioning of students on the words, we moved on and played karuta. Karuta is a game I was introduced to in my high school Japanese class. The teacher calls a word and the first kid to slap the flash card wins it. The kid with the most cards at the end wins. We played a few rounds, with me being silly at the end and calling random non-animals (like carrot) when there was only one card left, to see if they were really listening.

After Karuta, came the story. It was about animal noises. To solve my earlier problem, I decided to pass out the cards with the animals. Each student was responsible to hold up her/his card when she/he heard the animal’s noise.

Please remember that as they were being asked to do this, most of the animal noises that we use in English are different than the ones that Japanese people use for animal noises. So as we went through the story, a few of the students held their animal up for every noise, until they got it right, and a few actually tried hard. They stayed engaged the whole time though. That was the best part; I didn’t lose any students while reading a story which most students didn’t understand.


My view a couple of mornings ago.

Confessions of a Janken player

“You’re a strong Janken player” is what one of my students said about me (as translated by the English teacher). The funny thing is I have learned how to win or lose at Janken in Japan on purpose.

Janken, for those of you not in Japan, is Rock, Paper Scissors. Japanese people have an incredible chant that goes with it, I don’t completely have it down and I’m pretty sure I’m mis-pronouncing the words when I do say them.

Different from home though, is the fact that EVERYTHING can be decided by Janken here. Which team are you on for a sports game? Janken. Who just won the card in the game we’re playing as a class? Janken. I’ve even heard rumors that it’s used in Japanese business meetings (obviously I’m not present, so I’m not so sure).

Anyways, I figured out that I can decide whether to win or lose when I was first playing with students shortly after arriving. It was about a week after school started and all the elementary students from my four small schools came together at Shimokanayama Elementary, for a grand total of 29 students.

On this day, we had a big tournament where each time you won, people hooked onto your back and you kept going with this train of people behind you. Well the first few times I didn’t really have the chant down and I didn’t know when to show my symbol. So somehow, I ended up with paper. Then I realized I was winning each time. My elementary students were always playing rock first.

I thought, there’s no way, someone has to play something different. But can I win the whole thing only playing paper? Sure enough, who was the winner? Me. So in a battle against teachers and students, the foreigner who was playing for the first time in Japan won. Awesome!

Today, we played a game that used it as well. It was a game where we had flash cards laid out and the two teams were starting at either end of the line, when they met they had to say “Dom!” then Janken (used as a verb here). The loser went back, their team started from the beginning, and the other team continued. The goal was to get to the other end.

I based what I played on where we were in the line. If I was less than half way through, I would play paper and win, if more than that, I would play scissors and lose, giving the students who aren’t native English speakers a fair chance. Most of the time this theory worked. My team never did get to the other end, but I did find a few students who played something else and won or lost when I wasn’t expecting to.

At the end of class, students share their impressions. One girl commented that I am a “strong Janken player.” I had to laugh on the inside because she must have just met me each time when I was “winning” rather than “losing.”