Today I went on my first elementary school visit. It was a busy day. There are six classes in the school (one for each grade 1-6) and I played with (I mean...taught) each class. These kids were insanely cute. I nearly died from cuteness overload. And they were so excited by everything I said and everything we did.
I showed up in the morning and quite a few kids on the playground immediately wanted to talk to me and be my friend. As the foreigner who visits occasionally I'm almost a celebrity to these kids.
They set me up in a nice big carpeted room that was labeled play room in katakana (I'm starting to be able to decipher some kana!). I mention carpeting because shoes don't go on carpet, so I got to spend practically the whole day barefoot! Yea, I'm easy to please and being barefoot is one of the little things that make me happy.
I had very similar lessons for each grade. I introduced myself and had them practice introducing themselves in English and shaking hands. Then I taught them either fruits or foods. I played a fun game involving running to the board and slapping a flashcard with some of them. The first class that played the game broke one of the props in their enthusiasm. It was one of those plastic fans and I have roughly 400 more, so no big deal. I sang a lot of head-shoulders-knees-and-toes. The kids got excited over everything! A picture of the Chicago skyline, American money, a picture of my family, everything I said or did. A lot of these things I showed to my JHS students and they barely cared. So it was refreshing.
During morning recess I literally ran around with the kids. Some second-graders would take me by the hand and start running. I jump roped with the kids, played on the swings (even jumped off them), went down the slide, flipped over on the monkey bars... During lunch recess I played dodgeball with some kids. I miss recess.
I was so active today. I ate a bigger portion of the 900+ calorie school lunch than I ever have. I heard a lot about how tiring elementary school is, but this is clearly coming from people who have never been camp counselors. Seven hours of high energy children was fantastic. No boring downtime like I have at the JHS.
I can't wait for my next elementary school visit!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Speech Competition
Today was the county-wide English Speech and Recitation contest. LIke the title says, there are 2 categories of speeches: those that a student memorized out of the textbook and those they've written themselves. The textbook prints the worst stories ever.
I've been working with 4 students on their speeches. All their hard work paid off today because one of the speech students got first prize in that category and one of the recitation students got second place in that category. These two will be participating in the Sendai-area speech contest on Wednesday.
I'm so proud!
I've been working with 4 students on their speeches. All their hard work paid off today because one of the speech students got first prize in that category and one of the recitation students got second place in that category. These two will be participating in the Sendai-area speech contest on Wednesday.
I'm so proud!
Oops
I realized that snapfish is stupid about letting other people see my pictures. Apparently I have to invite others via email. So that last link in my previous post won't get you to my pictures. Sorry. Email me (ritayamin@gmail.com) if you want an invite. And I suppose I'll move my pictures to a less-stupid picture hosting site.
School Spirit
This weekend was Taiwa JHS' sports festival (undokai). This event is a huge deal. Classes were canceled to have time to practice. Kids practiced after school. A lot of preparation goes into the junior high's sports festival.
The school was divided into 5 teams: orange, red, blue, green, and yellow. Each team consisted of one class from each grade. The kids all wore headbands of their team's color. Each class also made a flag, so the whole event was very colorful.
The festival took place on the field (sand lot) in front of the school. Many parents brought picnic lunches and sat on the side watching.
The event began with all the students marching across the field. I can't decide if the marching is cool or kind of scary. Then there were quite a few opening speeches, a lot of bowing, some shouting from the team leaders, and stretches. Everyone stretched...the students, the principle, the PTA members...
The morning was filled with lots of fun events. There were some almost-western style relays, except an entire class ran as one relay team as opposed to 4 people. The ichi-nen-sei (1st year students) jump roped. Only they did it in cooperative Japanese style, where the entire class or 30 or more jumped together with one rope. While this seems impossible to the independently focused Westerner, they were surprisingly good at it. During one practice, I saw class 1-4 jump 23 times in a row. The ni-nen-sei (2nd year students) had a crazy relay involving alternating groups of three boys with legs tied together (like a 3-legged race) and pairs of girls who had to run with a balloon between them. The san-nen-sei (3rd year students) had a relay race where groups of 8 had their legs all tied together in a row. This event was tons of fun since it involved the most falling. The girls then had a basket toss competition. I helped make those bean bags that they're throwing. Afterwards, the boys had a huge, fierce tug of war.
After lunch, there was a cheering competition. Some san-nen-sei from every team made up chants and singing/cheering. They practiced really hard. School was so loud while they were all practicing. I recorded very low quality video of all the cheers, so feel free to watch. Green Yellow Blue Orange Red While figuring out who won that competition, we had roughly 700 more relay races. They just wouldn't stop with the relay races.
The event ended with the students marching once again, more speeches, bowing, and stretching.
I recieved a lot of questions as to whether we have sports festivals/jump rope/tug of war/whatever in America. I have to say, this was a very interesting Japanese custom.
The rest of my pictures from the sports festival are here.
The school was divided into 5 teams: orange, red, blue, green, and yellow. Each team consisted of one class from each grade. The kids all wore headbands of their team's color. Each class also made a flag, so the whole event was very colorful.
The festival took place on the field (sand lot) in front of the school. Many parents brought picnic lunches and sat on the side watching.
The event began with all the students marching across the field. I can't decide if the marching is cool or kind of scary. Then there were quite a few opening speeches, a lot of bowing, some shouting from the team leaders, and stretches. Everyone stretched...the students, the principle, the PTA members...
The morning was filled with lots of fun events. There were some almost-western style relays, except an entire class ran as one relay team as opposed to 4 people. The ichi-nen-sei (1st year students) jump roped. Only they did it in cooperative Japanese style, where the entire class or 30 or more jumped together with one rope. While this seems impossible to the independently focused Westerner, they were surprisingly good at it. During one practice, I saw class 1-4 jump 23 times in a row. The ni-nen-sei (2nd year students) had a crazy relay involving alternating groups of three boys with legs tied together (like a 3-legged race) and pairs of girls who had to run with a balloon between them. The san-nen-sei (3rd year students) had a relay race where groups of 8 had their legs all tied together in a row. This event was tons of fun since it involved the most falling. The girls then had a basket toss competition. I helped make those bean bags that they're throwing. Afterwards, the boys had a huge, fierce tug of war.
After lunch, there was a cheering competition. Some san-nen-sei from every team made up chants and singing/cheering. They practiced really hard. School was so loud while they were all practicing. I recorded very low quality video of all the cheers, so feel free to watch. Green Yellow Blue Orange Red While figuring out who won that competition, we had roughly 700 more relay races. They just wouldn't stop with the relay races.
The event ended with the students marching once again, more speeches, bowing, and stretching.
I recieved a lot of questions as to whether we have sports festivals/jump rope/tug of war/whatever in America. I have to say, this was a very interesting Japanese custom.
The rest of my pictures from the sports festival are here.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Typhoon
Today I experienced my first typhoon. This storm hit
Yesterday I told people that this would be my very first typhoon. Everyone was shocked! I guess if you live in a country that consists entirely of islands in the middle of the ocean, it’s difficult to imagine places that are unaffected by ocean weather. One of the English teachers even had a stereotypical Japanese television reaction: ‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaah?’ But I explained that
This morning one of the English teachers called to inform me that the weather was too severe for the students to come to school. So they get to stay home, safe and dry. But the teachers still had to come in, so here I am, blogging in the teachers room. I looked out the window, and thought ‘you’ve got to be kidding me. I have to go out in this shit.’ But I’m a trooper, so I put on my raincoat and grabbed my umbrella. School is a 15 minute or so walk from my house. I was immediately soaked, because no matter which way I held my umbrella, the wind changed directions and I got soaked. My umbrella kept alternately flipping inside out and bending far more than those metal stays are meant to bend. The last 5 minutes or so, I was holding the umbrella straight out, parallel to the ground instead of over my head, because that’s how the wind and rain were blowing. I got to school with my pants completely soaked through. I actually wrung them out in the sink. It’s a good thing I had a pair of sweats at school. My umbrella broke because of the wind. The fabric ripped off two of the stays.
Typhoons blow!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Back to school...
School is back in session and I've now spent two full days at school although I haven't taught any classes yet. But never fear--tomorrow I'm teaching 5.
Monday was the first day of the semester and therefore we had an opening ceremony. It was in the gym and very hot and at the end, one of the kids fainted because of the heat (remind anyone of anything?). Anyway, the kids were all wearing their formal uniforms. Usually they wear uniforms that look like warm-ups you would wear if you were on some sports team. (In fact most of them changed after the ceremony, as did the teachers. But nobody told me and I was stucksweating in my fancy clothes all day.) I noticed that the kids shoes are color coded by their grade. The 7th graders have white shoes with red markings, the 8th graders white shoes with blue markings, and the 9th graders' shoes have green markings. At the ceremony, I had to give a short speech in transliterated Japanese. I think I managed to get most of it out without garbling it too much.
Every day, at the end of classes, the kids clean the school. During this time on Monday I walked around and introduced myself to some of the kids. Some were very shy and tried to avoid talking to me. Others were very enthusiastic, but still turned to their friends for help. When I try talking to the kids, I tend to hear a lot of "YES!" no matter what I say. Which incidently is also what I do when people speak Japanese to me.
Monday was only a half day for the students, so many left at lunchtime. However, after lunch most came back for their various club activities. I worked with the speech contest participants for a while. Afterwards I prepared my self-introduction lessons until it was time for me to go home.
Later, I was walking down the street when I heard shouts of "Rita-sensei! Rita-sensei!" I ran into a group of 3 girls that I had introduced myself to earlier. I stood and talked to them for quite a while. They all needed to consult on everything they or I said.
One of the teachers gave me a bunch of veggies from her grandparents' garden. I got baby eggplant, some sort of little green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and 3 stalks of the biggest, fattest asparagus I have ever seen!
Today the students had testing most of the day. I didn't have too much to do. I spent about half the morning helping one woman who works at the school make these little balls filled with seed. It was a lot of fun. We took breaks to juggle and to play a makeshift basket toss. Later I tried to laminate some pictures and they got stuck in the laminator. Since I messed up a laminator, I officially feel like a teacher. In the afternoon I graded the 9th graders' English tests, which was terrible work.
Tomorrow I actually start teaching. Wish me luck!
Monday was the first day of the semester and therefore we had an opening ceremony. It was in the gym and very hot and at the end, one of the kids fainted because of the heat (remind anyone of anything?). Anyway, the kids were all wearing their formal uniforms. Usually they wear uniforms that look like warm-ups you would wear if you were on some sports team. (In fact most of them changed after the ceremony, as did the teachers. But nobody told me and I was stucksweating in my fancy clothes all day.) I noticed that the kids shoes are color coded by their grade. The 7th graders have white shoes with red markings, the 8th graders white shoes with blue markings, and the 9th graders' shoes have green markings. At the ceremony, I had to give a short speech in transliterated Japanese. I think I managed to get most of it out without garbling it too much.
Every day, at the end of classes, the kids clean the school. During this time on Monday I walked around and introduced myself to some of the kids. Some were very shy and tried to avoid talking to me. Others were very enthusiastic, but still turned to their friends for help. When I try talking to the kids, I tend to hear a lot of "YES!" no matter what I say. Which incidently is also what I do when people speak Japanese to me.
Monday was only a half day for the students, so many left at lunchtime. However, after lunch most came back for their various club activities. I worked with the speech contest participants for a while. Afterwards I prepared my self-introduction lessons until it was time for me to go home.
Later, I was walking down the street when I heard shouts of "Rita-sensei! Rita-sensei!" I ran into a group of 3 girls that I had introduced myself to earlier. I stood and talked to them for quite a while. They all needed to consult on everything they or I said.
One of the teachers gave me a bunch of veggies from her grandparents' garden. I got baby eggplant, some sort of little green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and 3 stalks of the biggest, fattest asparagus I have ever seen!
Today the students had testing most of the day. I didn't have too much to do. I spent about half the morning helping one woman who works at the school make these little balls filled with seed. It was a lot of fun. We took breaks to juggle and to play a makeshift basket toss. Later I tried to laminate some pictures and they got stuck in the laminator. Since I messed up a laminator, I officially feel like a teacher. In the afternoon I graded the 9th graders' English tests, which was terrible work.
Tomorrow I actually start teaching. Wish me luck!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Gasolina
The US, Spain, Morocco, Israel, and now Japan--places where I've danced to Gasolina. That song really needs to go away.
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