Elementary English today

For English class today, we studied shapes, and then made jack-o-lanterns. 

今日の授業に形を勉強してから、ジャックランタンを作った。

The kids' designs were so cute! 

生徒のはとてもか分かった！

These were all the pumpkins! The school is so small that in the 1-4th grades, there are only 4 students (plus the 2 pumpkins the teachers made). 

これは全部があった。この学校はとても小さい。１から4年生は4人だけ（＋先生の2つの）

It was a lot of fun and a good practice for next week, when I'll do this with another school. 

楽しくて、来週こうもするためにいい練習。

Some highlights from today

It was the perfect morning for a walk.

歩くのためにいい天気だった！

I challenged my elementary students to organize their ABC cards from Z to A. This group had a bit of trouble. 

今日小学校生にチャレンジをあげた。ZからAまで。このグループが少し困った。

The sky on my drive this evening. Isn't glorious? 

夕方に運転時にこの空が見た。

Dinner with new teachers

Today, I went out for dinner with two of the new high school teachers.

今日２人の新しい高校の先生と晩ご飯を食べた。

They are brand new teachers, just graduated from college.

今年の前に卒業した。

The one on the right is one of two new English teachers this year.

右のは新しい英語の先生。

This was my dinner! Look at all those bright, colorful veggies!

私の晩ご飯！明るい野菜があった！

It was a lot of fun getting to chat with these two.

話が楽しかった。

*  *  *  *  *

In other news, I had my first English club of the year today! I didn’t know it was even going to continue this year until yesterday.

今日英語の部活がはじめた。　昨日の前続くことが知らなかった。

I have 4 students this year – 3 girls and 1 boy.

今年４人　－　女３人、男１人。

We shared some things about ourselves and then we played Apples to Apples. Best English club game, EVER.

私たちは自分のこと教えてから、「Apples to Apples」と言うゲームをした。　英語の部活に最高ゲーム。

I had fun, the kids had fun and we all finished with a smile. Now I’ve gotta think of something good for next week.

私と生徒は楽しかった。　来週いいアクチビティが考えなければならない。

A conversation in English class

Here’s a conversation I had in class with two of my students.  

今日の英語授業の会話２人生徒と

Me: Are you ready? (to the whole class).

Student 1: No. Never.

Me: You’re a bad student today! (My smile revealing that I don’t think this at all).

Student 2: I’m a good student!

Me: You forgot your homework today!  (Also with a big smile).

*  *  *  *  *

Because I like tea, and I like to put pictures on my blog, here’s some tea.

お茶が好きだし、ブログに写真をのせるのが好きだし、お茶。

Photo Challenge Day 20 & 21

March 20: On my feet

What was on my feet yesterday? The camera socks mom gave me! Fitting, right?

March 21: close-up

I procrastinated again. So in looking around my living room for something interesting to photograph, I found my journal. The pages look kinda cool close up and only partially in focus, don’t you think?

*  *  *  *  *

Yesterday was the first day of spring, so we had the day off. So, I went to lunch with my friend Minami. We had hamburg curry. It was yummy.

After lunch, we went for coffee. It was rainy, but warm (5C/40F) yesterday. I was so surprised because we had lots and lots of rain.

It was tons of fun. I also got more work finished on my crochet project. Pictures will be posted eventually, but since it’s a gift for a friend, I want to keep it a secret for now.

After yesterday’s “spring” visit, Hokkaido winter decided it wanted to show us who’s boss. We got 6 inches or so of snow last night and it snowed like crazy all day. I had eikaiwa tonight, or I would have wanted to go out on the ski hill and practice a bit more before it closes on Saturday.

I had my last practice with my high school HEC kids this afternoon. They’re hilarious. One said the other had large eyes and then she decided to use her ruler to measure her friend’s eyes. Between that and a comment about her friend being a fish-pig, we were all laughing so hard. I have such awesome students.

Photo Challenge Day 15

March 15: In your bag

What’s in my bag you ask? Well, lots of things, but this picture was the most interesting.

Wonder what it says about my teaching style that I feel the need to carry 2 decks of cards, Uno and dice (in the Rebecca tin) everywhere I go?

Here are some of the books I’ve got too. Narnia in Japanese, my planner and my journal.

*  *  *  *  *

This is what I woke up to this morning: isn’t it glorious? I don’t know how he manages to do it, but God manages to wow me with this view every morning.

Today was graduation at one of my small elementary schools. These signs say Congratulations on graduation.

Though it sounds tiny with three students, this school had the biggest graduation for one of my small schools. I can’t believe these three are going to be JHS students soon.

When you are a ‘dignitary’ you get served green tea and they give you mochi. One of my friends who I boarded with the other day was the office lady there last year, so she came too. It was fun chatting with her and the other English teacher while we were sitting in the office.

At the end of the school day, I got to coach my HEC students. We did a practice test so they could see what it was like (and so I could practice it, too!). They have improved sooo much! I’m looking forward to seeing how they do on the test. I hope they get to go to camp – it would be great for them to get to practice English that much.

After work, I had a short break and then I went boarding with one of my high school students who I’ve known since she was in junior high school. It’s always fun getting to do something other than teach English with these kids.

Photo Challenge Day 14–a photo challenge kind-of fail

March 14: Eye-level

Nothing of interest was at my eye-level today until this came up. It’s not really a photo of anything but my computer screen, but it gave me a scare for a bit. Thankfully it decided to participate in life again after a few minutes.

When it did, I created a recovery DVD. Happy, happy recovery DVD. If I get this screen again, I can fix it!

Also, I am currently backing up my computer with SyncToy. Why did it take me 3 months to get around to this???

*  *  *  *  *

Another fun day, which ended in the baseball boys yelling incomprehensible things to me across the school – I have no idea what they yelled, but I gave them an I have no idea what you’re saying look and the teacher who was with them gave me one too.

Also, I had HEC practice with my high school kids this afternoon. We played Allie’s ‘The Best Game Ever’ which is every bit as fun as you’d expect. We were rolling around laughing by the time it was done. I’m playing this game earlier in HEC training next year because it also gave us a chance to talk about what a complete sentence in English is (subject verb object).

On top of both of those fun and silly things, the sun was shining today. Though I’d like more snow for boarding, I know that it’s short lived. Soon I’ll be ready for spring and cycling, but not quite yet. : )

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving to all of you in the USA! Thanksgiving just ended here (18 minutes ago), and it's a semi blog-less day. I'm still awake, but I should have blogged before midnight :)

Though I celebrated yesterday (more on that soon), I spent my Thanksgiving with my elementary students. With one school we learned about animals and had lunch. After lunch I headed to school 2 and got to teach all of the 5th grade in my whole school district, for a total of 27 students. They're going to be an awesome bunch when they get to junior high, they are so excited about English.

After school, I came home and packed for my fun trip tomorrow to the NaNoWriMo write in. I won't be working on a novel, but I'll be aiming to get some pre-blogging done and learn how to use my photo editor (GIMP). Looking forward to finding lessons online and learning.

After packing, I started on a dessert to take with me this weekend and dinner. A friend who I hung out with last week came over for dinner and a movie. She had rented 500 Days of Summer and it was due back tomorrow, so we decided to have a movie night.

I made pumpkin soup, she brought bread and we sampled tomorrow's dessert. It was great fun.

But now it's off to bed for me, because I have a fun and driving filled day tomorrow!

HEC Replacement Therapy, part 2

After camping at the beach, we headed into Sapporo to go hang out around the beer festival.

R was of course rolling her eyes at the cameras coming out.



Camera war! I think we were both going for the same shot and then shot each other instead, when we realized the other would be in the background.



N, the creeper.



Not sure what L & N were doing, but it was cute.



Being creepy again.



I think she hurt her finger.



H taking her own self-portrait.



Here’s mine.



Another fun shot.



In the end we did get to meet some HEC students, they were doing their own HEC replacement therapy with their ALT – an English dinner at a burger place in Sapporo. It was fun to talk to them and even crazier to find that their school is bigger than my town!



It’s sad to see so many of my friends leaving Hokkaido and moving all over the world and to have to say goodbye. Even so, I’d love to travel all over the world and visit all of them in the future.

Another reason I hate Katakana

Today, I discovered another reason to hate katakana.

Katakana (カタカナ) is the Japanese alphabet for loan words, words that come from other languages. banana becomes ba-na-na (バナナ), pineapple becomes pine (パイン). Sometimes this makes learning Japanese really easy, because it's just a very broken up way of pronouncing English. On the other hand, it makes my students believe that we will understand them when they speak Katakana English to us (not true).

But, other times katakana words come from other languages. Stapler, for example becomes ホチキス Ho-chi-ki-su, from the name of the guy who invented it. Part time job becomes アルバイト, a-ru-ba-i-to, from the German word for it.

Even other times, Japanese is put into katakana, because it looks cool. I think these are the most difficult words, because I sit there sounding them out trying to figure out what English they could be and they're not (I'm as bad as all of my kids, I expect katakana to always be English words). The Japanese words are the hardest, because they're not usually in the dictionary like that.

So today, my students are supposed to be practicing "Do you . . ." sentences. I look over one's shoulder and he's written "Do you play fagot?" I ask him what he means (assuming it's a mis-translation) and he says it's a katakana word and does the motion to show me it's an instrument. We can't figure it out and even the teacher is thinking I might be crazy for not knowing this word, but I know that this word cannot be what he means. I'm not completely sure of it's meaning in English, but I know it's a pretty bad insult.

After class, my teacher pulls out her dictionary and looks up what he means, bassoon, it comes from the word in German. She also looks up fagot and is surprised to find that it's such a terrible word in English.

Yet another reason why I dislike katakana.

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:

Stay or go?

The other day, I read a friend’s Facebook status about being homesick and really being stuck about whether to re-contract or not (most of us have received the papers by now). I remember being in that same spot, last year. Struggling with my job and the little bit of teaching I actually did at the time. Struggling with the tiny amount of Japanese I could speak and the fact that so many of the English speakers in Hokkaido are so far away. Struggling with the fact that I had left all my amazing friends at home and hadn’t made any friends that were near so good. Being in strong debate as to whether I could do another year here.

About this time last year, I came out of the super home-sick feeling. What changed? I took on some challenges, a friend and I posted a blog everyday. I started really pushing hard to study Japanese (what I was studying at the time was over my head and I eventually stopped, but it gave me a goal). I realized that I needed to do things I love and keep my house the way I want it (rather than being lazy and letting living alone be an excuse not to clean).

Last winter, all of us ALTs went to Mid –year conference. Vicki (the old PA – Prefectural Advisor) had the previous PA come and talk about re-contracting. I remember that she had us list the three  things we liked most about our job and the three things that we hated the most. Not being in the presence of my co-workers, I could be completely open about it. I hated the distance between me and friends (by this point, I had become pretty good friends with a few ALTs here – so both them and friends at home), I hated a couple of other things (I don’t remember now). The things, the “stranger” (another ALT I hadn’t met before) and I talked about were all things that with some energy and time, could be remedied.

Here, I sit, on the other end of that decision, knowing that I made the right decision. It was just before my first year was up that things really started to improve. I got to know the JET community as a whole, I got over my fear of getting stuck in a situation and not knowing what to say and started jumping in and trying, people started talking to me more.

I’m really glad I stayed, I don’t love being a human tape recorder, but more and more I am convincing my JTEs to let me have a small part in the classes. Not always huge change, but sometimes small things. Because I now have a relationship with them and some rapport, I can make suggestions and ask questions.

More and more I just feel included instead of excluded. This weekend, my supervisor invited me to go to her son’s school festival. I went and it being the largest school in town, lots and lots of my students were there (any kid that was there was either my student, my future student or my predecessor’s student). It was fun being surrounded by people I knew, rather than being in a crowd feeling lost. I got introduced to the kids who were sitting behind me, yochien kids (preschoolers) and was told that one of them would be in the first grade next year and I’d get to teach him. I had a fun time between performances tickling their toes and playing silly games.

In the end, recontracting is a hard decision, if you hate your job now, it may or may not improve in the next year, but on the other hand, having relationships around you just might make the difference. I don’t love everything about my job now, but I’ve built relationships with the students and teachers around me and really am loving living in Japan, now. 

Not yet sure what I'll do next year, but at this point, I'm leaning toward staying. 

An elementary visit

Today I went to one of my tiny schools. There are only 8 kids and this morning I was super excited to go. Last year, I went once a week, but this year they changed it and I only go once or twice a month (sad!).


I arrived and looked over the plans for the day. The teacher called me last night and we discussed the lesson (mostly in Japanese!). She decided we should do a Halloween lesson instead of vegetables (good since I realized this morning, I didn't end up planning anything for the veggie ahead of time).


The kids made masks and then they trick-or-treated from the principal, who gave them a couple of treats. It was fun and they had a blast wearing masks and dressing up. It was also a more relaxed English class than usual.


The best part of the day, though was at lunch. I got seated between on of my third graders, N,  and one of my second graders, K.


N and I had finished eating and were waiting for S (a third-grader) to finish eating. We did the usual game, where I steal their chopsticks and pretend I don't know where they are, but that only lasted for a couple of minutes before a new game began.


I decided to try to touch her nose with my chopsticks (they were back in their case). I got a good giggle, so I decided to try it again. She started using her chopsticks (in the case) to block me from doing it. I was able to get her a few times, but she blocked me more times. We eventually had to stop because we were laughing so hard.


Kids have the best laughs.

Where'd the Oregonian go?

This morning I woke up and it was grey outside. We’ve had a lot of grey days recently, so I assume it will warm up. At my junior high (where I was today), they are doing construction and rarely open the windows. I choose light clothes, to keep from overheating, while sitting in the stuffy staffroom. Once ready, I grab my bag, slip on my flip-flops and take off for school on my bike.

I have one class over the course of the day, so I spend my day trying to book a flight home, studying Japanese and chatting with friends.

As I walk to the second year room for lunch, I realize it’s pouring and decide my best course of action is to hope it will let up before 4:30, when I get to head home.

Slowly the minutes tick by. I am working on an email when 4:30 rolls around. I say goodbye to the friends I’m chatting with and the teachers who are actually in the staffroom at that time (many are out doing things with the students).

When I get to the genkan, where we change our shoes as we come in or out, I stand there for a minute, just stare at the rain, and laugh. I’m an Oregonian, I should have known better, right? Why did I think the rain would hold off as the weather forecast said? (Probably because it didn’t come at all this weekend).

As I’m standing there, Kanayama-san, our janitor walks up and asks if I have an umbrella. I shake my head no and mention that I have no jacket either, thinking still about how I should have known better. He smiles and hands me an umbrella. I ask if it’s ok and he says it is.

As I reach my hand into the box labeled with レベッカ (Rebecca), I remember that I wore flip-flops that morning. I slowly switch my shoes, thinking of how wet I’m about to get and head outside to realize this is going to be my first-ever umbrella bike ride.

By the time I get to the bike shelter across the parking lot, I’ve avoided a few puddles and watched a few students go running to or from the building in rain suits. “They were prepared,” I think.

The bike shelter surprises me, when I arrive, because it has a good inch of water or so on the ground that I have to wade through to get to my bike. Getting a bike out with one hand on an umbrella is much more complicated than I expect, but I get the bike out with minimal water on the seat and only slightly wet toes.

As I ride across the parking lot, I realize that it’s not as hard as I thought it would have been (especially considering I was trying to text and bike ride the other day). Holding the umbrella out in the wind, so that I can still see is the most difficult part.

Very quickly, I realize that hurrying home on my bike with the wind in my face and an umbrella in hand is a bad idea and will likely cause a gaijin-bicycle scramble (gaijin = foreigner). Thinking about how crazy this is and that I’d never have attempted it at home, I spend the whole ride home laughing. I begin laughing even harder when I realize that the umbrella helped me avoid a shower that included my head, but very much didn’t prevent the rest of my body from being soaked.

What will happen next year?

Interestingly enough, with all the cutbacks being made world-wide, JET is rumored to now on the chopping block as well. The only real article about it is here, and it doesn't even to have any real, solid facts.

Regardless, it makes me wonder what will happen if they just up and drop JET. I'll have some notice, because they wouldn't be able to do it until the end of a contract year (a year from August, at the soonest).

In my town, it would mean they don't have to "deal" with having someone who can't speak the language around. At the same time, they'd miss out on realizing that not everyone speaks Japanese, that my culture has me thinking about things entirely different sometimes.

In general, it would mean there would be less of us causing a ruckus whenever we end up in a giant group (which isn't too often). There will be way less foreigners to practice English with on the trains, sneakily snap photos of and be generally confused by.

Less foreigners would be able to come over knowing that they have this amazing support system that JET provides for us.

For me, it would mean I'll be thrown into a crazy dash to find jobs in Japan (should I want to stay) or the insanity of teaching jobs being cut at home.

I know that God will lead and provide wherever he leads, but it has me very curious to see what the future looks like for both Japan (including these people I care about), my JET friends and myself.

The future, it’s a scary thing

Today, in thinking about teaching and having random thoughts floating around in my head, I realized that I had been out of school for a year and a half before coming to Japan. No big deal. Until I put that next to my future hope of teaching and the way Oregon teaching licenses work currently. They are good for 3 years, then you have to renew.

Simple, right? Well, I’m currently working on a master’s course so I’ll be able to renew my license and not lose it while I’m in Japan. My thinking with this was I would arrive home, have another year on the license I’m working toward and then have to renew again. But that didn’t account for the fact that I worked before I came to Japan.

Oops. That’s an easy solution though, if I stay here and the only requirement is that I have done more masters work, then I do that and easily renew my teaching license. All well and good. Except, I only get to renew three times before I am required to get my masters (with the possibility of renewing one more time for 1 year to finish).

So where does that leave my future thoughts? Well, if I do end up staying here for 5 years (though who knows what God’s plans are), maybe I’ll spend my first year back in a master’s course or taking classes to go towards it while subbing. Hmm, that means I should probably be thinking about what options there are for getting a masters and decide what type of master’s degree I’d like to work toward. Wow. That means when I thought I finally got to escape from school, I need to be thinking about it again.

More English learning laughs!

My first year high school students are currently working on skits. Today, they were working on them during class. I was helping a group of four girls. We were chatting a bit (with very limited Japanese/English). All of a sudden one of the girls reaches into her pocket (she’s wearing a skirt). I tell them I’ve never had a skirt with pockets (might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s been a VERY long time if I have). This is one of the reasons I hate dressing up, is the lack of pockets. The girls were amazed and one asked the others (in Japanese, so this is my understanding of the conversation – mostly from gestures) where you carry your handkerchief. She considers the pocket in their jacket, but can see that I’m obviously not wearing a jacket (and rarely do). Then they think of the bathrooms that have automatic hand dryers (not at school). They continue with this line of thinking to decide I must blow on my hands to dry them. When I showed them that I just dry my hands on my pants, they were utterly confused.

After school, I was invited to practice with the badminton club. When I arrived, they were stretching. One of the girls started pushing on her friend (apparently to help him stretch). He started screaming, “Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Scream! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” I’m sure they thought I was the worst ALT ever, laughing while a kid is screaming, but I could tell he was not seriously hurting. He then wanted to know if he had used the wrong word and I had to explain that we don’t usually stop screaming to say “Scream.”

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.”