Halloween

On the day before Halloween my Elementary School in Kozuya let me have a Halloween party for my 6th grade class. It was a lot of fun for me and the kids. I told them and every class I taught that day Taily Po in Japanese. The kids seemed to really like it they were scared by it at times and amused by my faltering Japanese at other times. Then I told them about trick or treating. The teacher made a small door for the kids the to knock on and trick or treat from. They would say trick or treat and then I would ask them a question in English and if they got it right I would give them candy. Several students made funny mistakes with their answers. One girl said that her name was candy. Instead of saying she liked candy. Another girl when asked how old she was said she was cookie. So I say in Japanese, "you are cookie years old." She and the students around her laughed. So I asked again and to help her said I was 22 years old. This prompted her to think and then claim she was 22 years old.
Me teaching the kids monster names.
My Door.
This is the poster board about me at this school. It has facts about me and this poster of me. Apparently I have light brown hair and green glasses. Also if you look closely you will see that they dont ask if I'm married but if I'm marriage so I'm the physical embodiment of marriage.

Culture Fest 1

I have had my first culture festival. I forgot my camera so pictures will have to wait till I get pictures from one of the teachers. However, I will try to talk about it without the aid of pictures. This is my second Japanese culture festival and Samantha’s first. My first was at Kansai Gaidai and this one was a world apart. Which is to be expected when comparing a middle school and a college, I guess. The event was at Chokai which is my smallest school. In the first part of the day each grade did a play that they had made all the scenery and plot for themselves. The first year class has made global warming their project this year so their play was about a family and their attempts to save energy and prevent global warming. They do things like unplug appliances when not it use and turn of the car when they go shopping rather then idle it. This play was the easiest to understand because it went something like this. “I will unplug the TV,” then he would unplug the TV. The second play was a bit more interesting. I want everyone to know that this plot is not an exaggeration. The story opens with a girl confessing that she likes a boy and them going out. After the date she is hit by a car and killed. She meets a god of death who after some discussion agrees to let her not move on but posses the body of her boyfriend’s best MALE friend. She (in the body of the male friend) tells everyone that it’s not really Shinichi but Akiko (or some such collection of names), they of course don’t believe her and get mad at Shinichi for his poor sense of humor. The boyfriend pushes Shinichi down and then the scene changes. The girl in Shinichi’s body then goes to HER house to meet her grieving mother. She is wiser now and doesn’t immediately tell her mother she is really Akiko she waits a bit and then tells her. After the mother is upset the god of death comes back to take Akiko away. Then the god of death goes off stage and comes back in white socks, long underwear, wings, and a halo that kept falling off and either making him forget his lines or making the forgetting of lines more hilarious. The final part of the play is Akiko being reborn as the daughter of one of her class mates with no explanation of if the classmate has grown up or is just a pregnant middle school student. The next play was truly the most confusing and to try to relate it is difficult. It opens with the kids in class and they are complaining about school. Then it cuts to two kids rooting threw trash looking for things for their mother to eat. Then another girl comes and pushes those kids down and takes their trash. Also, the trash girl is carrying her English book and going on about how she wishes she could go back to school. Then it cuts to a scene in school where one of the boys is studying and the pushing down trash kids girl comes in and pushes him down too. Then it changes scenes again two girls are living with their parents who are happy normal people. Except, the mother is the girl who pushes everyone down. The children go outside to play soccer. Then trash boy and studying boy break in the house and murder the parents. The kids go live with their grandmother. Then it cuts back to every at school like in the opening scene. They then talk about how glad that their lives are like that and that they go to school. The play was not a continues story like we thought it was short bits of unrelated stories. After that we went to the class rooms and saw examples of things the kids had made including old English essays. One of which was about how a girl’s mother “loved her cat to much and that it made the cat want to escape. The girl’s conclusion was I know how the cat feels sometimes.” Other kids just talked about how cut their family pets are. Other exhibits where things like crafts the kids had made. There was also a room where community artists and handy crafters exhibited their work. Including calligraphy that they had made Samantha and I do. That’s right out calligraphy is right there next to some of the best calligraphy in the community. To end the festival the students had traditional dance and choral singing. The ninth graders even sang Scarborough Fair. Aaa youa goingu Scabaowa Faya. Actually it was really good singing and they had clearly put a lot of work into every part of it.

On a bit of a more serious note. Last week one of my schools closed for a week for the swine flu, it’s now reopen but the local elementary school closed for a few days this week. There is also no word here on when we will be able to see vaccines. However, in good new one of my towns does not have any cases of swine flu. This should also give you an idea of how spread out my schools are and how little contact the residents of small towns that make up Ichinohe have.

Recently I have been really busy here is a bit of my schedule tomorrow, Friday, Samantha and I are hosting a Halloween costume party. This will be after a full day of school for me where I have to teach time, months and Halloween, also I will tell the story of Taily Po in Japanese which my JTE has helped me translate. Then Saturday I have an elementary school culture festival in Kozuya. Then Sunday I have to go to my second elementary school’s culture festival. Then on Nov. 8 I have to go to my other middle schools festival. So I by the end of next week I will have worked everyday from October 25-Novermber 13 with two days off. These are not together either one day is a Saturday and the other is a national holiday. At least I can take substitute days for my weekend work but oh well. Looking back that’s not strictly true I have actually only had 1 day off since the 19th of October. So on November 13 my schedule will have been work 5 days one day off, work 9 days have one day off, work 3 then have one day off then work 6 and finally have a weekend.

A Day In The Life Of An ALT

7AM This is the time that I normally wake up to get ready to go to school. It takes about 30 minutes to do everything in the morning. Though it gets harder and harder to get out of bed for the morning to start as it gets colder.

7:30 AM Ride my bike to work. If I’m going to Kozuya this entails a short ride down the main highway route 4. There is a big shoulder and sometimes other bikers so its pretty safe. When I teach at Chokai it’s a 30 minute ride through the mountains so I can enjoy the scenery. Also, I will often stop and buy some fruit or vegetables.

8AM Arrive at school. I usually get to school a few minutes before the morning meeting. If this is the first day I’m at the school for the week its when I find out my schedule for the day. There is a short teachers meeting every morning. Before the meeting though we all use our name stamps to sign in. This is the time where I get ready for the day if I haven’t gotten everything done the day before. Things like making worksheets and the like.

There is home room and other things until around 8:45. This is when the first class of the day begins. Most schools have 6 periods in a day each of 50 minutes though all schools have a short schedule of 45 minute classes that they use sometimes. There are frequent changes to the class schedule because of assemblies and what not. When I say frequent I mean it to they change for anything especially elementary.

12:35-13:05 is lunch. I eat the school lunch like all the students and all the other teachers. Its usually pretty good. There is rice or bread, milk, vegetables, soap, and some kind of meat at every meal. It’s usually very filling and is very cheap, only a few dollars a day. After lunch there are 2 more class periods. Then the students clean the school and have another short homeroom. After all that there are club activates. These can go till very late after school some times 21:00 if there is a competition coming up. I hang out for a little of the club activities. Clubs are different at each school of example Kozuya has Volleyball, baseball, tennis and track and field. While Chokai only has table tennis. My normal time to leave school is a little after 16:00. Then its home for dinner.

During the day I can teach between 0 and 6 classes depending on where I am. If I’m at a middle school the normal amount is 2 but I can do up to 4 if the school has a special education class. At elementary I’m much busier since I go only once ever other week they have me teach as many classes as they can so usually 4 or 5. Also, I have more responsibility to plan the lower level lessons. 5th and 6th grade have a text book that they use but its teachers manual is only in Japanese so its very difficult and many ALTs hate it. For 1st-4th grade I can be the lead teacher and plan and execute the lessons virtually on my own. For an example week I will teach 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade. I have to plan the lesson for all but 6th grade. 1st and 2nd are about numbers and time. First grade gets numbers 1-10 and second grade gets what time is it and o’clock. For 4th grade I will be teaching a different lesson. It will be over these vocabulary words: standup, sit down, raise your hand, clap your hands, turn, jump, run, walk, swim, read, sleep, left, and right. I will also do a review over my name is and I like/don’t like. My main job in the elementary is to make English fun and teach vocabulary not grammar. I know that after reading this many of you are saying good since my grammar is bad and we all know I shouldn’t be teaching penmanship or spelling. The big challenges in the day are correcting the students and sometimes teacher’s grammar without hurting feelings. Also, I have to make warm ups and games for the middle school students which can get hard to come up with. Games need to teach a grammar point or review vocabulary, but do at least a little fun. Games that I like doing are Battle Ship, Shiritori (a Japanese game where one person says a word and the next person says a word that starts with the last letter of the previous words), and any game with lots of running in the elementary schools.