Extra Eigo (English) Lessons

Hi All,

As you are all busy with your own lovely lives, so are Chris and I. Getting settled into life in Japan has meant that posting updates hasn't felt quite as urgent or essential as it once did. We talk to family members and a few friends over Skype fairly regularly, and they get the mundane, every day stories. All the rest of you get is the Big News, which doesn't happen much these days.

Anyway, I thought that I would share a bit about my non-regular lessons. As you know, I teach 5th and 6th graders pre-planned and pre-provided English curriculum. But nearly every day I also teach an extra lesson for one of the 1st-4th grade classes, and these I get to plan myself. The smaller schools combine the 1st and 2nd grades (ichi and ni nensei), or the 3rd and 4th grades (san and yon nensei), and rotate the lessons so I see each grade a few times a month. Because of the length of time between these special classes it's not really feasible to create a progressive English curriculum that we keep building on; the kids usually forget at least 50% of what they learned between classes anyway. As a result, I just plan good stand-alone lessons: Colors, Animals, Food, etc. My goal is for my students to have a good time and to develop a positive association with English (and foreigners).

They generally love me; this is not actually a result of any of my personal qualities. The kids are naturally curious about foreigners and find me a total novelty. I may be the first English-speaking person some of them have ever seen in the flesh, let alone spoken to. They like my blue eyes and light-colored hair. Nearly anything I teach is a) new to them, b)reminds them of the "cool" English TV shows and movies they watch, and c) not real schoolwork, and therefore way more fun.

Many times a day I hear "Hello!" or, "Tessa Sensei, Tessa Sensei!" along with a hodgepodge of English they have learned from me or their older siblings. They love when I eat lunch in their classrooms because it gives them a chance to show off. For example: I'm sitting, eating my rice, and feel a tap tap and one of the kids has leaned over to me to say, "Tessa Sensei, Yes We Can!" (giggle giggle giggle). Or "nice to meechu", or my favorite, "Hello, mayonnaise Yuka!" (they sometimes hear "my name is" as "mayonnaise"). I'm grateful the kids are having fun with me and my lessons, because by the time they're the age of Chris' Junior High students, English class involves actual homework and tests and loses a bit of its cool factor.

These last two weeks I've taught my favorite 1st-4th grade lesson yet: Body Parts & Monsters. Isn't the correlation obvious? ;) First I teach the kids the names of the more basic body parts, we sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes several times (getting faster and faster each time of course), and then I call out Monster body parts for them to draw. For example, 2 green heads or 6 yellow eyes, or 10 short rainbow legs. They have to pass their drawings down the row after adding each body part, so they end up with really funny pictures. Then I have the kids walk around and share their pictures, wishing each other Happy Halloween.

In Japan it seems like personal expression and creativity isn't always encouraged, and valued much less than fitting in with the group. For example, whenever my 5th and 6th graders have to draw pictures of their favorite foods, sports, animals, etc, they all draw things the same way. And if there's a picture in the textbook of what they want to draw, they make sure to copy it exactly. Literally, if kids are drawing grapes, the grapes all look exactly alike. And they get frustrated if they can't make something look "perfect". It's a bit unnerving for me, actually. Anyway, with the Monster Body Parts lesson they kind of had permission to exaggerate and just do whatever they wanted. It was really neat to see so many completely unique monsters ;)

By the way, today marks the 210th day we've been in Japan - we have about 5 months left in this adventure. Coming up, we're going to another Kashima Antlers soccer game on Saturday, a Halloween party with other ALT's on the 31st (still not sure about costumes - no Value Villages over here to find costume pieces at), and looking forward to 3 different Japanese holidays (read - days off!) in November.

Hope Fall where you are is as beautiful as it is in Japan!

-Tessa

Happy Accidents

Yay for happy accidents! Tessa and I were driving through Itako (a town near where we live) looking for an Italian restaurant to got to for Tessa's birthday. We did find the restaurant (though it's unclear whether or not it is currently open for business, I guess we'll find out later) but we somehow also found an amazingly beautiful field of flowers. We didn't even know it existed, but apparently it is free for people to walk through, enjoy, and pick! The weather was nice, and we had a very pleasant stroll among the flowers (that we don't know the name of). Pictures below:







Guarded by Japanese scarecrows!






The flowers that we brought home. And yep, that classy vase was a $3 bottle of wine.