Some Japanese School System Rules

Some facts I learned today:

If students get into physical fights, the violent student can be kicked out of school. Depending on the level of violence, the police will come to the school, and sometimes the student will be arrested or even imprisoned.

Elementary school and Junior High School are compulsory, but High School is not. So it is easy (relatively) for High Schoolers to change schools. However, since Junior High School is mandatory, if a Junior High School student is kicked out of a school, they will go to another school.

There is also the problem of 不登校 [futoukou], or students who don’t come to school for mental or emotional reasons. Sometimes students can come to school but can’t handle being in a classroom with other students, so they go to a special room and teachers teach them one to one. Sometimes students can’t come to school period, so they stay home; sometimes they student, sometimes they don’t, but in Junior High School the government will not let the Junior High School kick them out. I find the permissibility of indefinite absence interesting. Also, since more and more technology is being integrated into the classroom, it is becoming easier for teachers to be able to send a student home with a tablet and the students can study from home. There is worry that this will keep students from learning how to socialize, though. Hikikomori (I suppose this translates to roughly people with a severe social phobia that don't leave their houses) are a growing problem in Japanese society.

How to Talk to Foreigners

After a discussion with an old high-school friend about things that should be taught in public schools in order to insure a well-informed citizenry, two big things were lacking from our public education experience: how to fill out important forms, such as job applications and taxes, and how to best communicate with foreigners. How to fill out forms is a pretty concrete subject, but speaking with non-native speakers is more open to opinion, interpretation, and an individual’s skills.

Then I realized I am in the perfect position to develop a lesson on the matter, being a second language learner as well as a teacher. I am also in a great community to develop this lesson.

Before I (sway) your opinion with my thoughts on the matter (and I have about 5 pages worth of stuff to say on the matter), I want to hear what you all believe are good strategies for speaking to foreigners (or, perhaps it would be best to say “non-native speakers”), and what should be avoided.

So, please leave a comment, or email me, or message me, or come have a chat with me! You can answer from either point of view: as someone speaking to a foreigner, or as a foreigner and how you'd like to be spoken to. My first lesson will be this Thursday, October 18th.

 

Pronunciation Practice

So, it's speech season.

Since a lot of the other ALTs are talking about practicing speeches, and some have requested explanations of what I do in class, I'm going to post a mini-lesson on pronunciation. 

Disclaimer: I am American and was trained in American English. Sorry to all your British and Australian and New Zealand readers-- I'm not sure how much of this (well, the vowel section) will apply to you!

Usually I am doing this as a warm up to speech competition practice. I teach 40 students in one class, and all of my students have to memorize the speech and then get tested on it.

So, I read a sentence or phrase of the speech out loud, the students repeat, if they didn't do it well (or we're just beginning) I say it again for a second or third time. Then, when we come to a word or sound of interest, I go into pronunciation mini-lessons!

I start with voiced and unvoiced sounds.

It's easiest to represent this with "s" and "z"-- try saying "sssszzzzssssszzzz" without stopping between the sounds. You'll notice the only thing that's changing is your throat-- your mouth stays in the same position. This is the difference between voiced and unvoiced: the sounds are produced in exactly the same way in the mouth, but the vocal chords are either turned on (vocalized) or turned off (unvoiced). (In this case, "S" is unvoiced, "Z" is voiced.) I've had my students touch their throat when doing this so they can feel the difference.  It's pretty easy for the Japanese to get this concept, because in the Japanese syllabary, generally if you add the ten-ten symbol ("), the sound becomes voiced. Thus, "sa" becomes "za," "ka" becomes "ga," "sha" becomes "ja," and so forth. (Note: Be careful with "ha", "pa", and "ba"! That little circle is weird! The unvoiced sound is "pa" and the voiced sound is "ba" and "ha" is linguistically very different, but the Japanese alphabet lumps them together oddly. I just skip it and don't talk about it.) I don't use the words "voiced" or "unvoiced"-- usually I say "のどを使う"-- use your throat. Sometimes I explain it with ten-tens ("). It really depends on the level of the students and how much linguistic vocabulary you want to teach them.

Okay, so now the students know voiced and unvoiced in Japanese. Time to teach them the sounds that use it in English: "F" and "V", "Th" (unvoiced: month, faith, cloth, etc.) and "th" (voiced: these, this, the, there, etc.).

F  (and V)

They need to know how to shape their mouths to get "F"-- I tell them they can bite their lip and it's fine. Or, once they are used to it, they can use just the back of their lip against their teeth. But it has to touch. The Japanese "ふ" is different because there's no contact. Once they get their F, it's easy to get them to V-- they just keep the same mouth shape and add the throat vibrations. I have them shift between f and v, going "fffffvvvvffffvvvv." It should tickle and feel uncomfortable. That means their lip is making contact with their teeth and vibrating-- they're doing it correctly!

Th

"Th" is difficult. First, I explain to my students that "th" is a very rare sound in the world, so it's a difficult sound for many people across the globe. But, even though it's a rare sound, it's not a very difficult one to make.

And then the work starts. The students find all sorts of creative ways to not stick their tongue out. (I find that when my students get embarassed, they pull the tip of their tongues back in behind their teeth, creating a strange "sh" sound. Sometimes it's hard to get them to just stick out their tongue.) Usually now, the first time I teach it to my students, I get them to stand up, close their eyes, tilt back their heads, and stick out their tongues waaaay far, and then make the "th" sound while shaking their head from side to side. Of course, I demonstrate first, so I'm the first one who looks silly (and I am unabashed about it, too!). Usually, distracting them with the other motions (standing up, closing their eyes, sticking their heads up) helps them not pay as much attention to their tongue, and I hear nice, clear "th"es, and I praise them very happily with clapping and cheers. And then, usually, they keep saying their "th"es pretty well.  After getting the sound out, I show them there is a different way it's pronounced (the voiced "th" at the beginning of "the" and the voiceless "th" at the end of "month").

To check their pronunciation, I have them say the word "months". And the two sounds at the end of the word have to be different. They have to say "Mon-th-s." If they say one sound at the end of the word-- "mons"-- they are saying it wrong. I say it with three distinct sounds. "Mon. Th. S." Then get faster, with the snake-like flick of the tongue out, pulling it in, and changing to "s". Sometimes I do this near the beginning of the "th" lesson, demonstrating how the sound changes from "th" to "s" as you pull the tongue into the mouth. I moved it to the end of the "th" lesson because "months" is a word in the speech my students memorized, and it was a nice way to wrap up the pronunciation lesson and move back into speech pronunciation. 

L and R

The most difficult sounds. "L" is closer to the Japanese ”ら” so I start there. The tip of the tongue touches the ridge behind the teeth. Unlike the Japanese R, it stays there, and you can elongate the sounds. (I'm pretty sure the place where the tongue touches the roof of the mouth is different between English "L" and Japanese "r".) In English, we touch the ridge behind the teeth-- I visually representing it by folding my fingers forward so they are teeth, and turning my hand up so the heel of my palm sticks down, forming the ridge, and the rest of my forearm is my soft pallet and throat. Then I touch the tip of my other fingers against the ridge to represent my tongue. I also invite them to stare into my mouth while I say "LLLLL~" because you can pretty well see the tongue sticking up there. I also tell the the air goes out from the sides of the tongue.

R is harder. The tongue pulls back towards the throat, without curling back on itself (a lot of students try to swallow their tongue by folding it back on itself. It's just the back part of the tongue that moves back!). I represent it by pulling my arm back from the top arm, usually bending my wrist so the heel of my palm can look like the back of my tongue pulling back. 

(Here's a good visual representation: http://beyondgrammar.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/lr.jpg?w=584)

The tongue is also lifted at the two edges, so the air goes down over the center of the tongue. The back sides of the tongue touch the back teeth.

I don't really know how to explain it better, but here's another visual: http://englishcafecdn.englishcafe.com/files/images/ec_8693_1263925372.post.jpg

Vowels.

Oh my god, Vowels. The Japanese are lucky. They only have five. Americans have 10 to chose from, plus 5 diphthongs. (Or maybe this makes the Japanese unlucky, because they can't pronounce five vowels that we Americans can!)

Our vowels are: i, ɪ, e, æ, ɑ, ʌ or ə, o, ʊ, u, and sometimes ɔ. *

And then we have the diphthongs: ai, au, ei, ou, and oi.

Examples of all:  i "feel", ɪ "fill", e "fell", æ "cat", ɑ "hot", ʌ or ə "America" (the "uh" sound), o "home", ʊ "book", u "moo", and ɔ (only sometimes used: as in Boston's accent for "coffee". It's like a mix between "aw" and "o." I don't think Californians say it often, but I know I use it in some words, and it's prevalent in Boston and New York accents.)

The diphthongs: ai (I love you), au (Ouch!), ei (hey!), ou (hello [have you noticed how Americans add a "u" sound to the end, while Japanese ハロー doesn't?), and oi (boy).

*The sounds that are present in Japanese I marked in blue. The sounds not present in Japanese I marked in red. The diphthongs are thankfully fairly easy for the Japanese to pick up, since they use them a lot, too. It's just getting them used to saying the diphthongs when only one vowel is written. (But, I won't get into spelling. English spelling is crazy, and has a lot to do with history. I liked one professor who said "English spelling shows the scars of language." I like to think it's the scars from when English beat up other languages and stole loose grammar from their pockets. [though, honestly, it was more the Brittish being beaten up by the Vikings and the Romans and the French, but shhhh.])

Sometimes this chart helps: http://clas.mq.edu.au/phonetics/phonetics/vowelgraphs/USE_Diphthongs.html

The Vowel Chart: http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/IPA/VowelChartLF.gif (This one is a little more complex than the one I use.)

I just have the students slide around the vowels. You can get the ɪ sound by sliding from "i" to "a". (Try saying "yyyyyyeeeaaaahhhhh" really slowly. Then stop when you've only said half. Yay, there's the ɪ sound!) The chart is designed so you can slide along the lines to different vowels. (It's actually a representation of the human mouth, sideways. It'd be easier if I could show it to you-- maybe if we skype sometime before Friday.)

I think, though, ultimately it just rests on the students being able to hear it. If they repeat, a lot of students will say the right vowels. Some never do. Just lots and lots of repetition-- listening to you, then repeating.

Here is an audio IPA chart. If you click on the symbols, you can hear the sound they represent.

http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm

The chart is usually way too intimidating to show any but my most advanced students, but I sometimes find it helpful to explain the differences in the 'th' sound using the IPA symbols "θ" (voiceless, as in "month") and the voiced "ð" (as in "those," "the," and "this"). Then they can have a visual symbol to match with the different sounds. Some of my students are learning IPA at their juku.

Tip to All ALTS:

GO TO THE SCHOOL NURSE!!!

Go! Hangnails! Headaches! Bug bites! Any Excuse!

The School Nurse is Useful because:
1.) She is there to take care of you. We are all faaaaaar away from
home—we can use some comfort and a sympathetic ear. It’s good for the
soul!
2.) It gives you someone to talk to if you are bored in the teacher’s room. ;)
3.) Yet another staff member who is on your side!

I first went to the school nurse because I broke a nail by accidentally slamming it
against my desk. (I had also done that nasty thing where the tip of
the nail turns backwards and pulls away from the quick, and there was
a tiny bit of blood and a lot of throbbing and stinging.) It was
annoying enough to put my mood off, and it looked pathetic enough to
gain everyone’s sympathy. I went down to the school nurse and not only
did she give me some awesome medicine that took away the sting, she
talked to me a bit and smiled and soothed my nerves. The rest of my
day went well.

The second time I went to the school nurse I had some nasty, nasty bug
bites. I have no idea what bit me—I know it wasn’t a mosquito because
I don’t really react to those. This big had bitten me four times (once
on my palm. What sort of bug bites you on your palm? A terrible, rude
bug, that’s what) and all four bites had swollen to the size of
quarters. They also each had a big, red, irritated ring about the
diameter of a tennis ball.

I went down three times to get anti-itch medicine and ice to chill the
inflamed bug bites, and each time chatted with the nurse for about 10
minutes. I’ve been flirting with homesickness, and having someone
there who is willing to fawn over my wounds was just as good for my
loneliness as it was good for those nasty, nasty bug bites.

So, ALTs? Get your booty down to that school nurse and get yourself some TLC.

;)

Halloween!!

Hello, everybody at home! Hello, all you ALTs!

IT'S HALLOWEEN TIME!!!

As such, I'm making lots of Halloween lessons! People from home, feel free to help me brainstorm. People from Japan, feel free to steal ideas for your own lessons and help me brainstorm. ;)

First, my card game! :D
I got the idea from here: http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm.
I loved them, so I started talking to people, and then began making my own. :3
I... have no idea how I'll use them in class, but I have a lot. I think it'll be something about "find someone with the same preposition" or something, but I need to look at the decks and make sure everybody has pairs, since I haven't printed off matching sets.



Ureshino High School Halloween Presentation:

This presentation will be made in front of 140 students, and will last 50 minutes. I will have access to Power Point. I believe I also have access to an audio system. It'd be good to establish that, though.
I think I will make it a bilingual presentation-- I explain things in English, and then my JTE explaining it in Japanese. This allows for accessibility, since this lesson is about building interest, not English lessons. This is an excellent opportunity for them to practice their listening skills, so they should hear English.

Possible Videos:
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
E.T. Halloween (confusing? )
Dracula clips
Six Flags Goblin/Creature Clips
Peanuts/Snoopy’s Halloween
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_Great_Pumpkin,_Charlie_Brown
Old Mickey Mouse Halloween clip
Nightmare Before Christmas

Wikipedia Says:

"Halloween (or All Hallows eve) is an annual holiday observed on
October 31, which commonly includes activities such as
trick-or-treating, decorating, attending costume parties, carving
jack-o'-lanterns, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted
attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching
horror films."

History:
Coming between fall and winter, harvest (plenty) and winter (need),
the light half of the year and the dark half of the year, and life and
death, Halloween marks the time for celebration and superstition. It
is a time of harvest, slaughtering livestock, and preparing for the
winter. Halloween is sometimes believed to be a day when the
boundaries between the living world and the spirit world was weak,
hence all the spirits.

Halloween comes from a mixture of old European beliefs— ancient Irish
religious festivals like Samhain, where the villages lit big bonfires,
tossed in the bones of slaughtered livestock, walked between the fires
for purification, lit all of their hearth-fires from the common flame,
and wore costumes to ward off ghosts; Roman fertility and harvest
festivals; and Christian beliefs such as All Souls Day, where people
pray that the souls of the dead can get into heaven. The Halloween
tradititon came to America through Scottish and Irish immigrants, but
in recent years Americans have re-started old European traditions rom
many different countries, including American American voodoo;
witchcraft, ghosts, and monsters from Germany. Some Christian groups
do not believe in Halloween, but usually it is a secular holiday full
of parties, food, costumes, and frightening decorations. Halloween has
become more and more famous in America over the past 30-40 years. It
is now second only to Christmas in the amount of money Americans spend
on decorations/costumes/other things. It is because of this massive
commercialization that it has spread to other nations, such as in
South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, mainland Europe, and Japan.

As a holiday, Halloween offers a safe environment to teach children
about death, mortality, and fear. Children dress as frightening
creatures and go from door to door asking for candy with
“Trick-or-Treat!”, and there are often costume parties and
decorations. Halloween allows people to celebrate what they would not
otherwise be. Halloween endures because it allows its participants to
both embrace and defuse their fears (Thompson 2003).



Halloween Activities:

• Halloween Fashion Show: show the students pictures of my Favorite Halloween Costumes. Explain Costume Parties, which are for adults nowadays as much as they are for children. Traditional costumes include witches, devils, skeletons. There are now expanded to archetypes, including ninjas and princesses, and cosplay, like Power Rangers and Spiderman, and visual puns, such as a facebook profile, someone getting eaten by a shark, etc. Basically, with modern costumes, anything goes.
• Bobbing for apples.
• Watching horror movies
• Telling scary stories
• Trick-or-Treating: Originated in the Brittish Isles. In America, they used to do a trick (take off the wheels of a wagon, cover the house in toilet paper) if the people inside did not give them a treat. Part of the rise of Trick-or-Treating was to keep young people from committing vandalism. Today, there are still pranks, but it is rare and considered rude. If the light on, you can go trick-or-treating, if the light is off, you shouldn’t visit the house.
• Haunted Houses
• Corn field mazes
• Carving Pumpkins: Jack-o-Lanterns.
• Decorating: haunted yards. Skulls, mummies, skeletons, ghosts, other signs of death. Jack-o-Lanterns. Other autumn decorations, like corn husks, squashes, and scarecrows, are prevalent.

Symbols:
Jack-o-Lanterns..
things you don’t like: spiders, bats, death.
Black Cats—superstition, bad luck. Tied with the devil and witches.
Bats—superstition, bad luck, fly in hair. Tied with Dracula.
From Literature:
Vampires—Dracula.
Frankenstein
Colors: Black and Orange
Pumpkins: Indigenous to North America

Food:
Autumn food like candy apples, Candy corn, pumpkin and pecan pie,
Candy Apples: At one time, candy apples were commonly given to
children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread
rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor
blades in the apples.[33] While there is evidence of such
incidents,[34] they are quite rare and have never resulted in serious
injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices
were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria,
some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in
order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known
candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own
children's candy.[35]


Presentation Notes:
Remember costume: Dress appropriately! :D
Activities: Draw on white, black, orange colored paper—it would be nice to post them afterwards for all the students to see.

* * *

More Activity Ideas:

-Toss beanbags into Trick-or-Treat Jack-o-Lantern baskets, shouting a
word each time? Practices speaking speed.

Halloween Writing Web Grades 3+
I put up a large yarn spider web on a bulletin board. Inside the web I
put 4x6 cards with writing ideas. For example-write a menu for Road
Kill Kafe; write a recipe for Witches' Brew; Creature Feature-devise a
devious plot for a play or TV show, write the script, act it out;
Monsters in the News-you are a reporter sent to cover a riot in
Ghoulsville-write the story and illustrate; Monster House-design a
monster house and write the copy to sell the real estate; Write a
Position Wanted newspaper ad selling yourself for a job-list all
qualifications and the horrible position you are looking for. There
lots more that you can think of to add. I post their finished products
around the perimeter of the board.

Halloween Riddles
1. What kind of music do ghosts like?
2. Why did the ghost take his family on an elevator ride every day?
3. What do ghosts do when they want to start up a computer?
4. How did the ghost do at the comedy club?
5. What do you call a website for ghosts?
6. What is Casper's favorite sticky treat?
7. Where do baby ghosts come from?
8. Why did the ghost go to the doctor?
9. What would you get if you crossed a cocker spaniel, a French
poodle, and a ghost?
10. Who protects the shores where spirits live?
11. What did the papa ghost say to his ghostly children?
12. What is a ghost's favorite direction?
13. Why couldn't the ghost ride the bus?
14. Why did the ghost rush home from school?
15. Why did the police officer arrest the ghost?
16. What do young ghosts call their moms and dads?
17. Where do little ghosts learn to yell "BOO!"?
18. Why are ghosts like newspaper?

Answers
1. Rhythm and boos.
2. To raise their spirits.
3. They boo-t it up!
4. He was a dead-knockout.
5. Bahoo or Yaboo!
6. Boo-ble gum.
7. Boo Genes.
8. To get a booster shot.
9. A cocker-poodle-boo!
10. The Ghost Guard.
11. Fasten your sheet belt.
12. Horror-zontal.
13. Because he didn't have exact chains.
14. To watch an afterghoul special on TV.
15. Because he didn't have a haunting license.
16. Transparent.
17. In noisery school.
18. Because they appear in sheets.

Resources:

Links To Start With:
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween
http://wilstar.com/holidays/hallown.htm
http://www.randomhistory.com/2008/09/01_halloween.html
Directory: http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Holidays/Halloween/

Lesson Ideas:
-Halloween Preschool Games (Good for Elementary School ALTs?)
http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/halloween_games.html
-Good Ideas for Halloween Games: http://seasonal.theteacherscorner.net/halloween/
-Halloween Epitaphs—each student makes a gravestone. (Involves internet research, perhaps too hard.) http://seasonal.theteacherscorner.net/halloween/epitaphs.php
-Halloween Journals:http://worksheets.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/halloween/
-Halloween Story Ideas:http://seasonal.theteacherscorner.net/halloween/storyideas.php
-Bat Poet Page: http://www.batbox.org/poetry/
-More Halloween Ideas: http://pazz.tripod.com/hallo.html
-Tacherly Halloween: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/tvsearch/theme=Halloween

Helloでございます *

Takeo Seiryo J.H.S.
is a junior high school for the smarties.

In Japan, Junior High Schools are grades 7-9, which I think is a very good division. The little 7th graders can be tiny (but sooo cute!), but they are old enough to be curious about adulthood, and having eighth and ninth graders around are good role models. So many seventh graders look up to their sempai, or elder classmates, and the 9th graders are all very busy with entrance exams, exit exams, in the middle exams, and I-don't-even-know-why-they-have-them exams.

I have 480 students: 40 students per class, 4 classes per grade, and 3 grades.

All of my students are very motivated, and while they were rather terrified of be at first, now I'm being greeted as I walk down the hallways. The 7th graders (called 1st graders, because they are first year middle school) are always the noisiest, the 8th graders (second years) are becoming quieter, and the 9th graders are rather studious. 3rd year English classes are divided into three parts-- four lower ranking classes and two higher ranking classes. Each class has around 25 students.




These are poems from a fun class I did with my lower-level third-year students-- it was before tests and the teacher didn't want to do anything to stressful... so poetry!!! :D

One of my team-teachers had a poetry worksheet, and I created a supplement worksheet with 5 of my poems and two haiku I found from the internet. My worksheet looked something like this:


Ms. Mary's Haiku

Alone in the cold
the blue chrysanthemum clings
to the craggy ledge

rain softens shadows
with a gentle purr, waiting
outside my window.

The shell twists back on
itself, coming round again
and again and again.


Mary's 1234-1 Poems

Travel
... very far
Making new friends
Leaving old ones behind.
Me

Biscuits
and tea,
reading a book
on a rainy Sunday:
Bliss.




Then the students wrote their own 1-2-3-4-1 poems, using mine as models.

I really enjoyed reading all of them! But, instead of giving you the 90 or so poems I had to read, I'll give you my top 20 favorites. :)



morning
a street
died some cicadas
silent inform end summer
lonely

tennis
very interesting
hit! hit! hit!
and run! run! run!

rainbows
many colors
very big bridge
people become very happy
Peace.

April
school start
come new students
studying talking playing loving
youth

Food
I’m loving
Meat cake maruboro
Everything is beautiful
HAPPY

kendo
origin war
I play kendo
It’s afraid and interesting
Try!

Art
use pencil
And paper ext…
Best need soft idea
Interesting

Animals—on the print

Tennis
very interesting
serve receive stroke
on a sunny Sunday
exciting

Japan
our country
beautiful green safe
it is very small
forever

Friends
I’m happy
I love them
talking, playing, crying, laughing
youth

A full moon
with a dark night
shining beautifully over the horizon
very beautiful

sports
playing basketball
run, cried, laughed
we practiced very hard
happy


* * *


Sometimes, the students didn’t write much, if at all. So, I wrote them poetry on their empty pages.

Empty.
This page
makes me wonder,
where are all the
words?

“School,”
she wrote,
but then she
drew a picture. No
English.

“Dream,”
he wrote,
but then said
nothing. It was rather
sad.

“Spring,”
she was
going to write
something—but had no
time.

To a poem that had

School
very funny

written on it, I replied:

This
poem was
started, but it
was never finished. So
sad.


*The title of this blog post was a quote from one of my students. でございます (de gozaimasu) is a politeness modifier. Golly, I love English/Japanese mixes.

First Day at Ureshino High School

How can I explain?
at my new school--
eating yesterday's rice.

Despite mixed emotions (nervousness, anticipation, exhaustion, exhilaration), my first day went very well. I might have lost my voice doing three self-introduction lessons back-to-back, though-- and the irony is my teacher's feedback was "next time, more English, and speak louder."

Yep, I'm definitely going to need voice lessons.

And, yep, I'm an English teacher using too much Japanese. Uh-oh. I'm going to have to start forgetting Japanese, and quick-- I'm already thinking in Japanese. I walked around the corner to see three students huddled together, and I was like, あっ、相談中、ね？ Then I did a back-take, and tried to think it again in English, and it came out as a garbled, "Oh, the teachers are having a huddled conversation thingy... Eegads, I'm thinking in Japanese!"


Ureshino is a small village up in the mountains of Saga. It is in a little bowl-like valley, with bamboo-covered mountains ringing it on all sides. The town is gorgeous. It is also tiny.
The school itself is rather pretty. Most Japanese schools look something like a prison (something like this), and while Ureshino's got the white-stucco-prison look, the building itself is rather new and clean, and the white-walled inner courtyard is very peaceful, with a Japanese-style pine-tree garden and paths and an air-bridge across the courtyard (I LOVE those!). The only nasty surprise was all the stuff in my desk-- I mean, c'mon, toilet paper and an old broken comb? And there were piles of papers that weren't English related, and I wasn't sure what to do with them except leave them stacked neatly in the corner of my desk and hope that eventually they wing their way away.

The student body of Ureshino High School is about 3/4 girls. It used to be a girl's school, and is still involved in "girly" pursuits, like art, sewing, cooking, and similar subjects. It is a lower-end school, so a lot of my students aren't academically strong. I even have the lowest of the low English speakers, the LL class (Language Learning, maybe?), which are the 6 failing students, who are so anti-school they won't even speak in Japanese. My teacher told me to expect students that were like "dead bodies." ;) But, guess what? I went in and told them that my ancient kitty has no teeth (but is still adorable), and that my dad was bald, which is why he wears a hat a lot, and they laughed and laughed and listened intently. I think I won them over to the dark side. >:}


P.S. Sorry, Dad.

A Fun Day with Phonetics

Today I laughed until my belly hurt.

Why? Because of phonetics:
In Japan, there is no "si" sound, only "shi."
Also, the Japanese do not distinguish between "l" and "r."

It makes sentences like:
"Mrs. Rosa Parks was sitting on a bus, clapping" very interesting.


P.S. That is a line from one of the speeches for the national speech contest.

Teaching on Aug 26

Facebook:
"You know you're a dork when: Your student makes a mistake with a postnominal reflex, and you 1.) know what it is, and 2.) it makes you giggle happily for 10 minutes, and then you write yourself a note about it."

Small grammar lesson: postnominal reflexes don't exist in English, though they do in other languages. They look something like this: "I know the man you talked to _him_."
The error my student make probably isn't a postnominal reflex, because I don't think Japanese actually has it. (I was grasping at straws. Being able to remember something, anything, from my grammar classes made me giddy.)

Anyway,
I'M IN JAPAN! School has started!
Seiryo Junior High School students apparently don't understand the concept of "Summer Vacation." Classes don't official start until September 1st, but already I've taught 4 self-introduction lessons, with many more to come. And I've made 80 COPIES of my FIRST WORKSHEET. IT WAS AMAZING! And my school has a paper cutter that uses lasers! I'm tempted to peek, but then my eyes might bleed out. I was also introduced to the industrial-strength shredder, which rocked my socks. I'll only feed it with my left hand, 'cause if my if my hand gets ripped off I want to still be able to draw. :)

I'm officially a real teacher.
A real dorky teacher.