Sports Day Fever

One day at an elementary school, the kids tell me that they are going to play a game at lunch. The way one of the fifth grade students explained it was that it was red, yellow, blue. etc. I was like "OK" sure we can play that. Not realizing that the colours refer to a baton. Before I knew it, almost all of the school came out and in an organized fashion, they got into their pre-made teams and started to run what resembled a relay. Well, I finally put two and two together and it looks like the kids were practicing for their Sports Day relay. That is commitment isn`t it? Even on their lunch break, they want to practice for the upcoming Sports Day.

Getting ready for the exchangeIn motionPeace out

Self-Introduction

Ok. So, the day has finally come to start teaching. In Japan, the all important first lesson is your self-introduction. Everyone has to do it. You can not avoid it. You will repeat it many times over the first month of teaching and you may have to do it again if you change schools or get new students.I teach at five schools: nursery, three elementary, and one junior high school. Since I teach in 21 classrooms so this lesson will be done 21 times over the first month. So, it is important to have a lesson that you enjoy teaching about yourself. Yes, you teach the students things about you, your family, your hobbies and most importantly, your home country.

The main things I wanted to teach in this lesson was about my family, my hobbies and my country. So, I got together pictures, maps, realia (for example, Canadian money), and some games or activities to do after my presentation. With nursery, I did a brief self-introduction (5-10 mins)and then when right into singing songs and playing games with the kids. Even though the kids are very young, this worked well. I had a four year old take out one of her textbooks and actually point to the Canadian flag. She told me I am from this place. Talk about a sharp pre-schooler and grass-roots internationalization!

Grassroots Internationalization at its best!

At the elementary schools, I spent about half of the lesson doing my presentation and then I had them colour and draw a Canadian flag. We also sometimes played a quiz game about what I said in my presentation. I also gave the students a present from Canada such as a pen, bookmark or pin. At Miyose, third graders drawing the Canadian flagNow for the finished product!
First graders at Wasa with their own flags and a souvenir
At the junior high school, I did my presentation and a written quiz. Then, my students all did a brief introduction, which they had prepared in advance for me. I thought that was really great! It helped me to learn more about the students right off the bat. My junior high school students also received a Canadian souvenir.
Eating lunch with the girls at my Junior High School
All in all the lessons went well. The students listened and the homeroom teachers helped translate but I did hear my students saying things back to me in Japanese which made me realize that they can understand and infer things quite well. However, I was very happy to move on teach other things!

BOE Days

From arriving in Hidakagawa, I have spent the work week at the Board of Education. We have had to do paperwork such as the alien registration and make my personal seal, set up bank accounts and deal with all sorts of matters to get me fully settled here. Aside from that, I have had plenty of quality time with the two other ALTs in my town to discuss matters related to life and teaching here in Japan. I have also being trying to wade through the copious amounts of paper and books collected at the Tokyo Orientation. If any future JETs are reading this, my advice is take an empty carry-on size bag with you to that because you are easily going to collect 5kg of books!

We have also had some fun in the summer at the BOE. One day, we all followed Emi home to have lunch with her there. That was a real treat as Mrs. Mori prepared a great spread for us. >

With all of this food, we were stuffed!
We also got to meet Emi`s charming 90 year old plus grandmother. We had so much food, we couldn't`t eat it all in spite of our best efforts. Although Emi assured us lunch is not always such an event at her house, it was easy to see why she always magically disappears home for the lunch break!
Lunchtime at Emi`s!
One day, our local town paper came by to interview none other than Mac about the loss of Pluto as a planet from our solar system. Although Mac is not fully trained as an astronomer, he was deemed qualified enough to give an opinion based on his citizenship as an American. Weird, huh?
Mac`s upset over Pluto`s loss; Looking camera ready

Last but not least, Emi was training Mac in the ancient Japanese system of counting. He took to it well and I think Emi had fun teaching him!
Crunching the numbers, Japanese-styleWakatta? Mac ponders the counting system

All in all though, I am ready to get out there teaching because I`m so curious how it will be after all the preparations and work it took me to get here to Japan.

Yosakoi

Everyday, I seem to learn new things about Japanese culture. One such thing is the importance of the annual Sports Day called うんどうかい (undoukai). I didn't realize that it would take precedence over most things during the summer months and most of September. For example, one day, a school forgot I was coming and scheduled undoukai practice instead of the ALT class and then another requested I start teaching after it was over. That's great because Sports Day is a fun event that brings the school together and sometimes even feeder schools.

Yosakoi practice
Although, I have not started teaching at my schools, I asked to be shown where they are located and when we visited my junior high school, they were rehearsing for their Sports Day. All of the school was in the gym working on perfecting an awesome looking dance called yosakoi. It is really fast paced and and looks like a combination of martial arts and dance. Everyone holds noisemaker as they dance and the movements mimics farming life as the dance originated in more rural parts of Japan such as Shikoku. There are many yosakoi festivals popping up all over Japan and even one in Wakayama City. I hope to be able to join one of the yosakoi practices with my students when I start teaching!

へのへのもへじ

Did you know that if you draw the hiragana characters for he no he no mo he ji (へのへのもへじ) that you can form a face? Well, I did not know until a couple of weeks ago when I saw this sign for an izakaya in Gobo and started asking around about it. Pretty cool. Check out the
wikipedia article on it.

Knock, Knock

My first friday here at the BOE was really quiet as I was the only ALT in our office. Mac has another office in the village of Miyama and only visits us from time to time. Ben was off for his nenkyuu (or vacation) so I was left to my own devices. In the late morning, I heard a knock on my door and turns out a little two year old was playing around with our mangets. I talked to his mom for a bit in broken English/Japanese and found out that her little son is already learning English. He may be one of those nursery kids that surprises me in class and knows some English words already. In fact, they now have kids' programs in English on Japanese TV. I am going to start watching them cause I would probably pick up a thing or two that I could use in the nursery and elementary classes.

Mom and son at my office; Doing some rearranging
My new name!

First Day at the BOE

My first full day of work was Thursday, August 10 and no time was wasted in getting me comfortable with the commute to the Board of Education (BOE). Co-worker, Ben, drove me to work showing me a variety of bike routes. My favourite bike route includes a ride across the rice paddies which we attempted successfully in Ben`s K car. Arriving at work, I went around with Emi and met more of the BOE staff members. I also met a number of the town`s high-ranking officials such as: the mayor(choochoo-san), deputy mayor(joyaku-san) and financial chief(Shuunyuuyaku-san) as the BOE is in the town hall. Each of them took a little time out of their day to ask me a little bit about Vancouver and wish me well. The financial chief was especially inquisitive and asked all about Canada, the geography of the country and finally how close is Vancouver to Seattle, the home of Ichiro Suzuki . Everyone is quite impressed when I mention that I have seen Ichiro play in Seattle.

At 11:30 a bell rings for apparently no reason. Although, some say it is so the farmers know to take a break. At 12:00, the lunch bell rings and Emi and I head down to Lawsons for lunch. I pick up one of my favourite convenience store dishes which is the summer noodle dish, hiyashi chuka. Part of the fun in eating it is putting it all together. See below.

Hiyashi chuka lunch from Lawson. A good DIY lunch.
After the 1:00 bell, it is time to go back to work. Since the middle part of August is when the Japanese people celebrate O-Bon, it was time to do some osoji (cleaning). Ben and I had to clean our desks, windows and the air conditioner. O-Bon is the time when the ancestors come back to visit their homes and so the houses and offices should be cleaned at this time.
Ben cleaning (osoji) for the Obon festival preparations; Being interviewed by the local paper
Before the day was out, I had a visit from a local reporter. I was not expecting this at all so it felt like a bit of an ambush but it was a lot of fun. I tried to answer the reporters questions in Japanese and then Emi jumped in if she felt there was need for clarification. Somehow I even started singing in Japanese for him. I think the reporter was quite amused by that. When the article came out on the weekend, it said that my hobby was karaoke and that I can sing a very popular Japanese song called "First Love" by Utada Hikaru . Hopefully, I can practice up before the welcome enkai(party) or office karaoke party.

Songs, Games and Chants, Oh My!

Day Two of Orientation had us separate into groups by the types of schools we would be teaching at Elementary, Junior or High Schools. I decided to go to the Elementary School Workshop since most of my schools are at that level. My ALT duties will include teaching at a nursery, three Elementary schools and one Junior High with only 25 students. In total, I will teach about 465 students in the areas of Hidakagawa-cho that used to be Kawabe and Nakatsu villages.

An elementary school teacher or Homeroom Teacher(HRT) as they are called over here lead the workshop. She seemed to have a lot of good ideas and told us a bit more about what to expect from the kids and how to involve the HRT in the class. The Japanese government has recently made teaching English mandatory at the elementary school levels. The problem is that most teachers did not need to take English past high school so I think that my role as an ALT in elementary school will be really important as the HRTs may not be strong in English. At the Junior High level, the ALT team teaches with the Japanese Teacher of English(JTE).

My friend who works in research on Japanese Elementary school English language education told me that at this age they want to start introducing students to the rhythm and tone of a native English speaker. So, it now all makes sense that most of the workshop covered how to teach English through songs, games and chants. We even got to sing a lot of the songs and learn a lot of the games throughout the morning. I learned how to sing some children`s songs like "Twelve Months", "Seven Steps" and a new favourite "Hello". I feel sorry for an Elementary school ALTs who don`t like singing because we will be doing a lot of it. Also, we will be playing games like "Fruits Basket" which is similar to musical chairs. There is also some rhythmic style called "Jazz Chants" but I`m not sure it will go over well with the kids. I may give it a try.

One interesting thing I have noticed is that Canadians sing "Head and Shoulders" to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down" while Americans sing some new fangled version. I personally believe that most of the commonwealth countries sing it this way and that the Americans and now the Japanese have got the tune wrong. I first encountered this while volunteering in Buenos Aires and the fellow volunteer from New York sang it that way. It caused a bit of problem since I wanted to sing it my way but I relented. Well, no more. I have to sing it the way I learned in elementary school. So kids of Hidakagawa you have been warned: we will be singing Head and Shoulders to a different tune.

Pop Culture: The Ultimate Ice-Breaker

After I got back from Argentina this summer, I remarked that “I am grateful for Shakira because she is a the one pop culture connector we have between North and South America.” Aside from Utada Hikaru (J-Pop singer), Winter Sonata (popular Korean soap in Japan) and a few Japanese movies, I am fairly ignorant of what is popular in Japan. So, of all the optional workshops in Tokyo, my favourite one was “Japanese Pop Culture”. Two current JETs walked us through the various groups, shows and movies that have hit it big in Japan. Seems that the Japanese stars have more staying power than some of our North American celebrities who are hot one minute and not hot the next. Since I’ll mainly be teaching elementary school aged children, it seems like Harry Potter is the big thing as is Johnny Depp and his role as Capitan Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Another pop culture phenomenon in Japan is the popularity of anything kawaii (cute) that is popular with any age group. I even fall into this trap sometimes with wanting to buy asthetically cute stuff. Aside from getting us up to speed on who is hot in Japan now, they also showed us what is possibly the funniest video on Japanese etiquette ever by a comedy group called Rahmens. This video covers the Sushi Restaurant. Test yourself and see if you guys what is right and what is worng!

Have a Happy JET Life!

Keio Plaza Hotel Welcome; View of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building from my hotel room
On my way to breakfast, I bumped into Sarah A. at the elevator. Sarah A. is going to be the JET who lives closest to me (about 30 minutes by bicycle) in the Hidaka-gun area of Wakayama Prefecture. I’m glad it’s so easy to find the JETs going to my prefecture. After a big western-style breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast with a few Japanese touches thrown it (burdock root, vegetables,) Sarah and I wander around the AJET Bazar and pick up the must-have book, “Team Taught Pizza”. Then, we move upstairs to wait for the start of the Opening Ceremony. While we are waiting, I spy a fellow Wakayama-bound JET, Parry, who turns out is also placed in my area, the Hidaka-gun region. Once the JETs start filing into the Concord Ballroom, the rest of the Wakayama-bound JETs roll in. They have arranged us to sit by Prefecture and with only 12 JETs in this group, we are one of the smallest.
Toby (standing), Quinn, Parry, Sarah A. and I (l to r)
The formal ceremony started with a welcome by representatives from CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) and the other three government ministries that coordinate the JET Programme: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). After those greetings, we received a presentation on Essential JET Information by JET Programme Coordinators who are all former JETs. Once that was over, the like-minded Wakayama JETs and I made a bee-line for the lunch on the 43rd floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel. It feels like you are up in the clouds overlooking the expanse of Tokyo. The lunch was one of my favourite Japanese dishes, curry.
View from the 43rd Floor of Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku
After lunch, it was back to the Ballroom for the Panel Presentation portion. The Panel was lead by the Chief Textbook Inspector from MEXT. He was very funny and I love how he quoted “My Funny Valentine” by asking us, “Is my face laughbable?” His grandmother told him never to give a speech in public and here he is before all 1200+ of us. In fact, he even challenged us to give him a standing ovation, which he received after his amusing speech. No one has ever received a standing ovation before. A former British JET now working for the British Council regaled us with stories of his grocery store stalker and the different types of enkais: “Welcome Party”, “Farewell Party” and my favourite, “It’s hot outside, why don’t we go for a drink party?” One thing you often hear about the JET Programme is that you are just going to become a human tape recorder but we were assured that we will be “better than a tape recorder”. Although the Panel Presentation was long after 4 speeches, I did walk away with a better sense of my role as an ALT and the realities of teaching English in the Japanese school system. It really left us with the feeling of how we too could “Have a Happy JET Life!”

Rite of Passage

Like the ubiquitous backpacking trips around Europe, teaching English overseas appears to be another one of those rites of passage for young university graduates. It’s a chance to: experience life as an expat; travel; learn a new skill; immerse yourself in another culture; pick-up a second (third or fourth) language, and hopefully save some money or pay off those pesky student loans. So, as a recent B.A. grad, I am about to partake in this rite and start a year-long stint on the JET Programme as an Assistant Language Teacher or ALT.

I have wanted to participate on the JET Programme from hearing about it as a kid in Steveston , BC. After participating in an exchange program to Jonai Junior High in Shizuoka , Japan during junior high school, I became very interested in the language, culture and history of Japan. I continued studying Japanese in high school and at the University of British Columbia (UBC) picking up a degree in International Relations with an Asian Studies minor along the way.

For me, going on the JET Programme will be a rite of passage. I’ll gain a greater sense of self and independence living away from my family since I chose to stay at home while attending UBC. It will also afford me the opportunity to travel around Asia and improve my Japanese.

Throughout my time on the program and the preparations for the program in Vancouver, I will be using this blog to reflect on and share my experiences working and teaching in Japan.