A Week in the Life

As application season is upon us, and I have some time on my hands, I thought I'd write up a post about what a typical work at week looks like for me. I'll be doing a writeup of my week, as it's a pretty average one and gives a good idea of what I generally do for work. As always, potential applicants should remember that lovable JET mantra - Every Situation is Different! My situation, specifically, is teaching at seven different elementary schools. Here's how it plays out:

Monday

On Monday I went to Persimmon Elementary School (names change to protect the innocent). Persimmon is one of the largest elementary schools in town, with several hundred students. This was my second visit; on average, I visit about twice a month.

Since Persimmon is a larger school, I teach only fifth and sixth year students. English is more commonly taught in this age bracket than to younger students, and beginning next year these students will have a mandatory period of English study - something like 20 hours per semester.

My first period at Persimmon is free, and I spend it in the teacher's room preparing and drinking a really amazing amount of green tea. Second period I teach one of the 5th grade classes. Normally, in my first visit to a class I give a self-introduction and ask the kids to introduce themselves to me in simple English - name, something they like, things like that depending on the level of the class. On my first visit to this school, however, the fifth graders spent the entire time asking questions. Because of this, the class today consists of practicing self-introduction vocabulary and then delivering the self-introductions. It's a large class, so this takes most of the period.

Third period is the second group of fifth years. They ran out of time in their first lesson as well, as we do the same thing as the first group - self introductions. I wad up a piece of paper and pass it to a student, and have them introduce themselves. After they are done, they can toss it to a classmate and then sit down, and in this way it becomes more interesting for them than just going down the rows.

Fourth period is the first group of 6th years. The 6th years are significantly more reserved than the 5th years, and so we had plenty of time to do their introductions last class. Today's lesson, then, is going over the standard Daily Practice that I conduct whenever a class starts. This consists of greetings ("Hello class! Hello Tony!") and a few standard questions - How are you? How's the weather? What day is it? This gets the kids ready for English period, and was inherited from the previous teacher. Since I'm the first ALT at Persimmon, though, this needs to be learned anew. We spend the class going over the question "How are you?" and its various responses, and playing games to reinforce the vocabulary - the hot-potato idea from the fifth years worked well, so I do it again to make the students ask and answer the target vocabulary.

After fourth period is lunch. In Japanese elementary schools, lunch is carted into the classroom and the students serve each other and eat at their desks. I eat the kids' lunch with them, changing classrooms each time. Today is with the fifth years. Another quirk of Japanese school lunch is that it is generally accompanied by music - the Austin Powers theme today, for example.

After lunch is a free period, in which the kids mostly run around screaming. I go outside and play soccer with the students, which is a bit confusing because they manage to have four distinct games going on a single field. This results in quite a few eight year olds getting whacked in the back of the head, but they don't seem phased. The students expect me to be a natural star at any sport, and luckily I have a good ten inches at least on them so I don't usually let them down too badly.

Fifth period is the other group of sixth years, covering the same material as the first group. I have one more free period after this, and then the kids go home. I meet with the teachers and we plan our next lesson, and I go home.

Tuesday

Every Tuesday I go to Starfruit Elementary, one of my two set schools. It is a small-ish school, the smallest of the "big" schools I visit - it has all six grades, but some classes as small as four students. At Starfruit, I teach every grade - which classes I will do in a given day depends on the day. This week, I'm teaching the First, Second, and Third-year students.

My first three periods are free. I write, prepare materials, and drink a lot of green tea. Fourth period I start in on the first-years. This is the only school where I work with kids this young, which is a bit intimidating, but the key to the really young kids is just to have a lot of energy. This is my second time working with them. Our lesson for the day is introducing vegetable vocabulary. I first go through the flashcards, covering them with my hand and then slowly revealing the picture so the kids can guess what the item is - these are farm kids so they actually are familiar with things like cucumbers and kale. As we uncover each card we repeat it several times and then stick it up on the board. Once the cards are all revealed and drilled, we put them on the floor and the kids play karuta. Karuta consists of kids sitting in a circle with cards in the middle. The teacher says a word, and the first kid to slap the right card gets to keep it. This is a great standby game that can be applied to anything, and the kids are always excited to play it. We do this a few times and then the cards go back up on the board. Now I have the kids close their eyes, and then take away a card - the kids have to say which card is missing. This is a good activity because it gets the kids to actively say the words without prompting or repetition. They freak out when the game goes on and eventually more than half the cards are taken away. For the last time I hide the cards around the room and the kids run around trying to find them (hiding things from people that are two feet tall is really easy). The class is over and I have lunch - today is with the 4th years.

Fifth period I have the second years. The same rules apply as with the first years, for the most part - lots of energy. I meet with them more frequently than with the first years, so we continue an animal lesson from last week by introducing some new animals that live on a farm (again, most of these kids live on or near farms, so its pretty applicable to them). We play karuta with the cards, and then go over the sounds animals make - some of them are quite different from in Japanese (Pigs in Japan say buuu, buuu). Then we introduce the song Old MacDonald - a song the kids know in Japanese. We sing the first verse in English and the class is over. We'll continue next week with adding animals.

The last period of the day is third years. We've been doing family vocabulary, and last week the kids drew pictures of their families. We finish the pictures today and introduce them to the class - "This is my father, Hiroshi. This is my brother, Kenta," etc.. At the end we have some time left, so we talk about various animals we have at home - kids are always surprised to hear I have five dogs back in America. After class I plan out the next week's lesson with the relevant teachers, and head home.

Wednesday

Wednesday I head to Cantaloupe Elementary. Cantaloupe is my other regular school, and I go there every Wednesday. It's a larger school, like Persimmon, and like Persimmon I only teach fifth and sixth years here. First and second periods I have fifth years, and we finish up a month-long unit on actions - learning words like Run and Climb and grammar like I Like To and Do You Like To? The culmination of this lesson is a game in which kids get a sheet full of actions and have to walk around and ask each other if they like doing those actions - the goal is to find a yes for every action. Since Cantaloupe is a larger school, games that involve students interacting with each other work better than ones that are between teacher and student, as those activities tend to leave the rest of the class idle for a long time (you do not want to deal with bored ten year olds). This activity, and the preparation for it, takes the whole class period.

Third period is the first of the sixth grade classes. At Cantaloupe, the sixth year teachers give more guidance in class content, as compared with some other teachers at other schools. Today we continue a lesson from last week in which the students cut out cards for the alphabet and played karuta with them. The twist this week is that instead of just using letters, we use whole words, so the kids have to really practice listening to pronounciation. This lasts the whole period. Fourth period is free, and fifth is the other sixth year class.

Thursday

Today I drove out to Watercress Elementary. This is one of my smallest schools, lying in a small community about ten minutes out of Monbetsu proper. With only six students, lessons at Watercress have to take a different form, but I really enjoy going there. Its also one of the schools that I don't go to for an entire day - instead of showing up at 8:00, I go to the Board of Education until 10:00 and then drive out.

Watercress' students are divided into two classes - a class of three third years and one second year, and a class of three fifth years. The school was once larger, and included middle school students, but the population shrinkage in rural Japan has hit this community and it is now at its smallest size ever. Outside the school are the remains of the Watercress train station, which saw it's last train in 1985. Despite all this however, the school is well-funded and housed in a building just five years old. The students are also much closer than in the larger schools, seeming more like a family than like schoolmates. I visit Watercress around twice a month.

The teachers at Watercress plan the lessons beforehand, so I just have to follow my script. With the second and third years, we practice some set English phrases - look! Wake up! Good morning! I'm hungry! They show great enthusiasm for this. The fifth years are working on shopping activities, and today they take turns running a "shop" in the classroom and serving the other students. They learn vocabulary for various foods, and things like "One ____, please" and counting vocabulary for money. Last time I visited, we spent the fifth period after lunch picking beans from the school garden. They were delicious. Today I play "badminton" with the kids, in a variation that involves four players and no net. They are delighted with my attempts to use the racket like a sword (which does not work very well).

Friday

Tomorrow I am not scheduled to go to a school. The schools all hammer out their schedules at the beginning of the academic year, in April, and there are days when I don't have one to go to. On these days, I work at the Board of Education office, and generally make supplies and materials for future classes.

This has been really long, but hopefully informative for anyone interested in what an average day on JET is like. Again, this is just my experience - some people spend all their time at one school, some visit all levels of school, and some take different roles in the classroom.

A Guided Tour of the Monbetsu Party Palace

As I am having friends over tonight for a delightful dinner, I actually cleaned my apartment. This is something of a first. I took this opportunity to take some pictures to share with those who haven't experienced the glory. If you are a prospective JET, this represents something like what you might end up with but as always, ~every situation is different~

My apartment is up on the fifth floor of a building owned by an elderly couple who also run a store downstairs. When you ascend the stairs the interior looks like this:



Charming! The interiors, however, are much more serviceable. You come in through the "genkan", a feature of Japanese homes where the floor is raised shortly after entering the house, leaving a small sunken area to take off your shoes in. From here you go straight ahead into the main living room area (click for larger pictures):



On the right you can see my bedroom (and prized vuvuzela), which is attached to the living room directly. You could hang a curtain if you wanted to. Another shot:



The blue pillows are the bed are zabuton, or Japanese butt pillows for sitting on the floor. I'm having company over so I have them out and ready to go. Also in the bedroom, you can see the traditional Japanese rice-straw tatami mats on the floor.

The kitchen is attached to the living room next to the entrance area. Here's a picture from the living room looking back towards the door:



To the left is the doorway area and the sunken genkan. Off to the left is the bathroom and toilet (different rooms!). There's also a washing machine visible in the kitchen. Additionally, although you can't see them, there's about eight different trash cans in there. The Japanese have a thing for trash sorting.

Hope you've enjoyed your tour of my apartment! Please come again when its covered in papers and clothing.

Kancho to the heart pt. 2

I have suffered my greatest personal disappointment thus far in Japan.

As you may be aware, karaoke is one of the factors that holds Japanese society, like a layer of duct tape on a high-powered engine valve (or something, I don`t know cars). Since JETs are masters of cultural adaptation, we tend to do our duty and adapt to the culture of karaoke with great enthusiasm. It was in this spirit that I went with friends to karaoke in Asahikawa this weekend. Far from a normal outing, however, this trip was special; I had recently been practicing a new song, with which I planned to blow everyone out of the water and most likely launch an multinational music career.

The song was Come Sail Away by the incomparable Styx. If you don`t know the song, look it up on Youtube and you`ll probably recognize it. It has all the elements I like in a karaoke song; namely, it`s extremely theatrical and dramatic, and the bulk of the vocals are well beyond my actual range. Needless to say, I was quite excited to have a chance to bust out my new song.

We got to the karaoke box, began queuing up songs, and I looked up my song and... nothing. They had Styx, but not Come Sail Away, so what`s the point? I was ruined. In despair I ended up doing Wolfmother - Woman, which turned out to be one of those songs I like in real life but which has two lines and a two-minute guitar solo. Not the best choice for karaoke.

Despite this terrible setback, I still managed to have a good long weekend (monday was Respect for the Aged day, a national holiday) full of shopping and food. I tried soup curry for the first time, which is sort of a Japanese vision of what Indian curry might look like. I also bought a vuvuzela, cementing my place in the world as a hipster three months past current.

This week is a short week, with Monday being a holiday and Thursday being another. On Friday, I`ll be playing ping-pong at one of my schools, something I`ve developed quite a taste for against all odds. Updates to follow.

Like a kancho to the heart

Long gap since my last post - I've been busy. Here's an update with some pictures, though!

Last weekend, myself and a slew of other JETs traveled north to attend to the Northern welcome party, in a town (village(intersection)) called Nakagawa. Nakagawa station, three hours into the mountains, looks like this:



We arrived Saturday afternoon and proceeded to dick around the town and set up camp before nightfall, at which point we hit the hot springs (pictures omitted) and commenced doing the sorts of things adults generally do while camping.

In the morning, several JETs had signed up for the local festival, which entailed many spirited rounds of log-pushing. Log-pushing is essentially a tug-of-war in reverse; teams hold on to each end of a large log, and attempt to push the other team out of the playing area. I didn't get to take any pictures of it, but this poster sums it up:



Hooray! One of the JET mens teams managed to make it to the semifinals, which was probably due to their fetching lumberjack costumes.

Here's some other random pictures from the train ride back and the night in Asahikawa before heading back to work:




In other news, I had my first experience with "kancho" today. For the blessedly unversed, kancho is an important part of childhood in Japan and is enjoyed by boys and girls of all ages. It consists of clasping the hands together with the index fingers outstretched, and then attempting to ram the resulting projectile as far up the rectum of any given adult as you can. Yeah, I don't get it either. I knew about kancho previously, but today was my first time having a kid actually go for it. It's not a one-time thing, either - this kid was really earnestly dedicated and it's quite hard to keep an eye on a specific 8 year old when you are surrounded by thirty of them.

Ah, Japan.