List post 2? 頑張れ！

Recently-

-The students were using the tips of mechanical pencils as tops today!  Why didn't we ever think of that?  They were actually able to get them to spin quite well.  Also, they were playing what looks like the game "marbles" using erasers.  The sat in a circle, put their erasers on the desktop, and tried to knock each other's off of the table.  Oh the ways you can be creative in school!  I remember in high school, the game that was really popular to play was tabletop football.  You fold a piece of paper to make a triangle, and then tape it.  Sit across from a friend.  Throw the triangle across the desks.  If it falls, you lose.  If it close to your partners side without falling of, you get a point.  Then you can "flick/kick" a field goal through their fingers.  I think I'm finally starting to get used to the school.  I still don't think I'm MEANT to be a teacher for children, but it's getting much easier as I'm doing it more.

-The schedule at this school is always so rearranged!  I wonder if it's just the time of year that I am starting, or if it is always like this.  I'm guessing it's always like this, which means it is rather disorganized in it's own methodical type of way.  For example, there are many tests right now.  Especially for the third years who are about to take entrance examinations for high school.  Until the tests are over, there are not supposed to be after school activities.  The weird thing is, there are still SOME after school activities.  I don't understand it.  Doing the practice for the speech competition is proving to be difficult because of all of the changes.  One student hasn't showed up yet, and the other one is doing her best, but she's really busy.  Also, the students are supposed to leave school by 4:45 some days, by 5 other days, and by 5:30 other days.  I don't get it.  Basically, I stay until 4:45 unless I am doing club activities, and I don't usually know until the day of.

From before-

08/26/10

-Teacher tells me I can plan some things for tomorrow’s three classes, and that it should include introduction and activity.  I guess she didn’t really know until recently either, but then I actually had stuff to do!

-Then Mizukami came over and gave me a bunch of grading.  Funny funny English.  Should have written some of it down, but I do give some of the kids credit for trying.  Some of them also have some great dreams, and with the little English they know to explain it I can only imagine what they really feel!

-Finished my first worksheet.

-Way too much lunch.

-Plan to bring in container, and start eating with kids twice a week starting next week.

-Will watch a few of my lessons next week.  Meh.

-Finish plan for other teacher’s class.

-Better fit for secretarial/organizational work?  Love keeping the things organized, not sure how much I like planning lesson plans though!  Maybe I’ll get more used to it.

-Cleaned with the kids.  No one there!  Ran away from me.  Lot’s of hitting.  Forgot about silly graffiti.  Forgot about middle school I think. 

-Checked the board, but forgot my camera.

-Little moth sat with me for the whole afternoon.

-Wish I could help out more

-Why do we come expecting students to already speak a lot?  Just because English is global, and many people speak it, doesn’t mean they should be born knowing it.  Their native language is Japanese!  My native language is English… I didn’t start learning Spanish until 7^th grade, and it’s really similar to English.  I still can’t speak Spanish and I took it for six years.

"I want to be with people that are aspiring to do things, share my morals and challenge me."

9/9/10

Well, I have been writing things as I think of them on a piece of paper I carry around with me or have at my desk at school, but I haven’t gotten the chance to write it up yet.  I will attempt to use this time to write it down in some sort of understandable fashion.

Because I wrote them down in bullet point format, the ideas probably won’t flow very well.  I will try to add what I can, so please do your best reading the choppy style.  I will start from the beginning of the sheet!  (Also, I took a photograph of one of the sides so you can see my ideas on paper.  I drew a small comic, but I don’t think it’s very good so I’ll try to draw it again.

Also, I apologize if I have actually mentioned any of the following.

So, one morning I came into school and instead of a morning meeting, all of the teachers left the room. If they said what was going on, I didn't’ really understand.  No one asked me to go anywhere though, so I assumed I was ok.  I got bored at my desk though, and was curious to find out where everyone went so early.  Apparently there was a school-wide informational session instead of a morning meeting.  I didn't have to go because it wasn’t geared toward me, and because I don’t have my own homeroom.  The students had all gathered in the gym, and were watching a movie about the dangers of smoking.  Also, a teacher did a short speech about “why you should start thinking about your future.”  I stayed outside with a few of the teachers because I don’t have gym shoes, and it was nice to just be outside in the air.  It was still a little cool outside at that point.  Also, it was funny to watch some students come late and be teased by the teachers who were waiting outside.  Have I mentioned that you have to wear different shoes inside than you do outside, and then you have to wear different shoes again in the gym.

There is typically very little communication regarding me, so a lot of the time I don’t know what’s going on.  For example, there are a lot of classes I just have to go into blindly and read the English passages they’re teaching that day.  Or, things from the morning meetings don’t necessarily get translated or comprehended, and sometimes I’m expected to be somewhere but no one has told me.  Either I ask and then I find out, or someone realizes that I should be going somewhere and they tell me right then.  For example, I’ve been talking a lot about the preparation for the school festival recently.  Today we had first and second period, and then 3^rd and 4^th period were both set aside for the festival.  Since there has been a lot of schedule rearrangement lately, I assumed that it was just like the other days.  I don’t have to join in the prep process really, but I’m still at work.  At this time, everyone was going outside to do a little mock-run of the order of events for Sunday.  I didn’t realize that I would have to go outside for this time, but the Vice-Principal was walking by my desk and said “shall we go?”  Oh well, I suppose it happens.  If I was a teacher at such a large school and there was a foreigner working there, first I wouldn’t want to assume that they didn’t know what was going on, and second, I probably wouldn’t have time to worry about them all the time.  I think that sometimes the staff thinks that I understand more Japanese than I actually do.  Sometimes though, the teachers talk about me in front of me.  For example, sometimes they say the lesson isn’t interested, but sometimes they say things like “she’s so pretty,” or “that’s an interesting skirt she’s wearing.”  Things like that.  I’m flattered when they say good things about me, or when they talk with one another about how to ask me something in English but I already know what they want to ask because they’ve just said it in Japanese.  It’s fun at times, and other times I do wish I was actually unable to understand.  It’s funny though sometimes when the students exaggerate or over pronunciation English as if making fun of the way I speak, because sometimes those are the times they’re actually doing it the best.

Despite having 750 students in the school, it really doesn’t feel like so many.  When they’re all in the hallways at the same time it feels like a lot of students, but when we’re at an assembly, I’m not daunted by the number of people I see.  Perhaps that is because I’m simply more comfortable with public speaking?  Also, since the architecture of the building is so strange there isn’t that big American school feel, because all of the classrooms are basically separated from each other.  When I’m in one class, I can only ever see one other class.  Does that make any sense?

Did I already post this?  “A positive attitude and a rigorous work ethic are as important to a professional image as personal appearance.”

Now that I am a teacher, I’m constantly thinking about what makes a good teacher.  When I’m in class, I try to figure out why some classes listen and others don’t.  Is it the teacher?  Is it the class dynamic?  I definitely think it is a combination of both.  Also, some students react to teachers differently than others.  I think genuinely wanting to learn helps, and then having specific tricks are good too.  For example, Japanese students are notorious for not answering questions voluntarily.  Sometimes incentives help, but other times they don’t.  For example, one teacher had all of his students stand up and answer questions in order to sit down.  Other students were chosen, and if they wouldn’t say anything they had to stand up in the middle of the class until they did.  There are different techniques here for sure.  I have been trying different types of games and techniques to get students to have fun, and to get them talking.  For some classes, certain techniques would not work at all.  Also, I’ve heard of other things I’d like to try but cannot initiate with such large classes.  I think by the time the year is up, I’ll have a bunch of tricks up my sleeve.  I also think that I can use these tricks not only with students, but in everyday life.  For example, I’m learning a lot about public speaking, presence, positive attitude, smiling, being patient, explaining concepts, classroom management, reading people, and speaking.  Some of these seem to obvious, but when you interact with so many different people every day, you know how to change the way you act, in order to adapt to the style of the person you’re talking to.  I wonder if I’d ever be a good sales person if that were something I had any interest in.  I think I can understand how they get so good though.  Some people are naturally talented at reading others I think, but of course practice makes perfect!

Last week we had an earthquake drill.  In the states we have fire drills and drills for if someone goes crazy and the school needs to go on lock down.  Here they also have fire drills because they are rather frequent.  I haven’t felt any this year, and apparently they are not too common in Yamanashi, but it was interesting to see what a drill was like.  Students first put something over their head, like a towel, pillow, or soft bag, and then they go under their desks when the announcement comes on.  After the fake earthquake is over, all of the students are supposed to run outside to the field, sit there with the pillow still over their heads, and wait.  You go outside just in case the building starts to fall down, and you go to an open area in case there are landslides or trees falling down.  Most of the teachers had white hardhats, so the school nurse got one for me too.  The teachers didn’t have to do the whole ‘hide under the desk thing’ unless they were with their classes.

From September/October:

I want to make this job my challenge.  It’s starting to remind me of my sophomore year at school being an RA.  It had it’s miserable days, and it’s amazing days.  Mostly just the "on-call" days were bad, which is kind of like my Thursdays/Fridays.  I grew so much from that time, and although I wouldn’t (didn’t) choose to do it again, I knew that I wouldn’t want to replace that experience.  I learned a lot from it, and I gained a lot from it.  Self-confidence, ability to talk to people, etc.  I think that this year is similar to that.  It is difficult, but I’m getting used to it.  I’m learning to be more confident I think, less shy, and just take some of the situations as they come at me.

I want to make it through this year ON TOP.  Better than when I started.  Making it through the year isn’t really what I want to say…  I want to OWN this year.  I want to do better than anyone expects me to do.  I want to do better than the students expect me to do.  Don’t let anyone wear me down.  Keep coming out on top.

Students say that English is so hard for them.  Is that why they’re not paying attention?  It seems so easy to some of them.  When I think they’re getting it, some of them aren’t getting it at all.  It doesn’t seem like they’re learning enough.  I wonder why English is so difficult for native Japanese speakers.  When I try to learn some of the grammar as they’re learning it, I also think it would be difficult to learn English as a foreign language.  There are rules, but they don’t always follow the rules.  There are a lot of unnecessary filler words as far as Japanese speakers are concerned, or why do you use “000” here when “000” was just used there?  Hm.

In class, a lot of the kids tilt back really far in their chair.  I was surprised to see the first kid topple over today.  I think it was his friend’s fault because he got him back later, but it took a lot of energy not to laugh at him while standing in front of the class.  The JTE was actually really annoyed, so I stifled my laughter, hoping she hadn’t seen.  Suddenly though, this reminded me of a time in middle school when some boys in my math class pulled the chair out from under me as I was about to sit down.

Other ALTs are known to take their job less seriously, which is bad in one regard, but I think it helps them get through the day.  Especially if they work at a rough school.  I think I also need to take the students less seriously.  Don’t really listen to what they say, or take it with a grain of salt.  They say things maybe without thinking about the way it effects the teacher as a human… or since they’re hormonal and growing, they don’t really think about what they say before they say it.  Plus they’re mostly only concerned with themselves.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m getting better I think, and the students are treating me differently.  Less like a foreigner/celebrity.  It’s good and bad in both regards.  I’m also getting less shy around them, which makes a big difference.  The older I feel the easier it is to see them as children still, which I probably shouldn’t do, but it it makes me feel like I have more authority, or like I can approach them easier, then maybe it’s a good thing.  If you take it less seriously, it’s less difficult?

Something that makes me think that I want to be a writer, is that I am always writing in notebooks, or on scraps of paper, on the computer, etc etc.  In class I carry a clipboard around to write down my thoughts of words I hear that I want to know.  I’m going to start putting post-its in the textbooks so that it’s less obvious that I’m writing memos to myself about class or about Japanese.  There are some classes where I have no time for this kind of note taking, but there are other classes where I'm just listening in between the times that I’m reading, so it’s possible.  Is this a bad thing?  Maybe I should start writing something to some day be published?  Maybe I should go to grad school for business/writing?

Everyone seems to be getting sick at school these days.  I feel like it’s hard to call in sick as a teacher, even though my case as an ALT may be different.  I want them to think highly of me.

Sometimes people say I’m more Japanese than the Japanese.  Which I think means I act more like Japanese people are traditionally taught to or expected to.  Obviously it’s not genuine however, because I’m American.  I act a certain way because I think that’s the way I’m supposed to or expected to.  Since I’m American, it’s not the way I’m expected to act, which is probably why they say I seem to Japanese at times.  It’s mostly just the ritualized expressions that I use, that some people don’t always use?  I don’t know.  I’m acting in a way, but it’s because I’m trying to be culturally sensitive.

Sundays don’t seem to be working for blog writing.  Maybe I should pick a different day, or work out a different method.  It seems that Sunday would be the best day if it weren’t for trying to scrounge together things for work that I hadn’t done on Friday or Saturday.  Maybe Monday?

For some classes, I really don’t end up doing very much at all.  I suppose I could take more time in roaming the classroom, checking that they’re actually working.  In my mind though, if they’re sitting being quiet that’s good enough for me.  I shouldn’t have to FORCE them to learn English if they really don’t want to, as long as they’re not disrupting the class.

I can’t wait until I really know the language…  Will I ever actually be bilingual?  Can I ever learn Spanish again without forgetting all of my Japanese?  It is fun that I can understand so much of the language now, but I have soooo far to go.

I have lost the school celebrity status.  Most of the students no longer think I'm so interesting.

I feel obligated to finish my lunch even though the students rarely finish theirs.  Then I feel bad for eating so much later.

When I have time, everyone is busy, buzzing around.  I feel like I should be somewhere, doing something, so I lose productivity.

Japanese people (students) seem good at literal/copying, but they’re not so good at imagination.  Of course that’s not true for ALL JAPANESE people, but I think that’s just the way Japanese people are taught as a culture.  Maybe that’s why the US became so big so fast?  We were taught by using out imagination.   Japanese people are taught by imitation, then they make what they’ve imitated into something either more reliable or useful for their situation.  They perfect the things that have already been made.  Is this actually true or am I generalizing?

The third year classes are now split into two sections each.  I like it more because it is easier to handle the smaller classes.  They were ok larger too, but now it’s easier I think.

Mr. Tomita had a good intro to the class- the “must item” from the magazine, for the “must” lesson.

Tuesday, good class to start with!  There are several boys in the class that make it really fun.

Middle schoolers are funny. 

Someone always seems to get in trouble when I decide to use the copy room, which doubles as a discipline room.  Or maybe it’s not that, but that I don’t have many free periods, so when I do I just notice then.

A small class dynamic (even if it’s only half of the exact same class) is such a different feeling that the larger class dynamic.  I am really enjoying speaking in front of people though, which I don’t think I could have foreseen had you told me in Middle School I’d be doing this.  I did always like being in performances and stuff though.  Anyway, I’d like to do more actual speech practice.  In class?  Get more experience?

Writing letters to the students should help my Japanese, should get me closer to a few of the students.  It does take a while to write them though, so days were I have too many I’m a little busy.  However, I think the letter writing to me will phase out slowly until anyone writes me next year.  I think they get tired of it too because there isn’t all that much to say.

People crying during class… I wish I could know why.

For a REALLY low level, how would you teach English using only English?

文房具—bunbougu

Even if the bell rings, the students don’t stop until the teacher says it’s over.  In America it was supposed to be that way, but for some classes people would get up and start packing up or try to go on time.  Some teachers though, that definitely was NOT ok, and you would know about it.

Japan makes me want everything!  Mostly stationery related… or “cute” things… which are not totally practical for a person my age in the states.

They have to have all 6 items to get the points, but we rarely use them all so I don’t see why they have to bring them.  Just makes their bags heavy.  Their textbooks aren’t as heavy as ours were though…

Each class has English three times a week.

They trade pens and pencils with one another.  What did we trade in junior high?  I remember things we traded in elementary school…  pogs, stickers, etc.

Speaking in English is actually more exhausting that speaking Japanese now!  I think it would be better to hire people who don’t know any Japanese.  Benefits the students more, and they can go through the day blissfully ignorant.

Seems that ALTs don't always have a good reputation with Japanese English Teachers.

I know people hated “busy work” in school, but now I know exactly why the teachers give it.  It’s good practice, and it also keeps kids busy, which minimizes talking and distractions.

I thought it was hilarious, even though I wasn’t really supposed to think so…  One of the students was writing on the face of another student while he slept.

Should I care more that they’re not doing English?  Now-a-days if they’re quiet (even if they’re sleeping…) I’m happy.  One of the other English teachers seems to be feeling the same way.  If they’re not sleeping or doing something to keep them occupied, the first years are really really loud.

Was looking out of the window during one of the classes.  There is a public park right across the street, and there was a large gathering of retired age citizens.  They were playing croquet I think!

I feel safer in a suit than in more relaxed clothing.  I think it’s because it makes me feel more separated from the age of the students.  Also, I hope it gives them the image that they should treat me differently than if I were in normal clothing.  I think it works a little bit, especially when I get mad.  I think one of the students who is from the Philippines (maybe) might do the same thing with a face mask.  Usually people wear them when they’re sick, but she’s been wearing it since I got here.  I think it makes her feel safer, since some students might be picked on or singled out for not being Japanese.

Well, there are still notes in my folder here and there that I wrote down.  I'm sorry these thoughts are so disorganized, but I waited too long to write them down and then there were too many.  I wish I could put them in some kind of order but that will have to wait until I find that it's absolutely necessary.  If you find any mistakes, or really just don't get something I've written down, feel free to comment.

If you got this far, I'm so proud of you for hanging in there!  Thanks for reading!

おつかれさまでした！ごくろうさまでした！

ラナ

Lana