The "New" School Year

Hisashiburi (it's been a while), sorry about that!  Since school officially restarted on April 9th for most of my schools I can't really say that it's a "new" school year anymore.  But I still wanted to mention some of the differences between this year and last year that I've noticed so far.  I'd say that my favorite difference has been that I get to teach one of the special education classes at the middle school (and basically run it however I want).  My least-favorite difference is that one of my other new classes has some troublemakers in it and so there have been issues with discipline.

The elementary schools and middle school also have new editions of their textbooks this year.  I like the elementary one, "Hi, friends!" a little better than "Eigo Noto" so far (since the title is actually English this time around) but I still wish that they included more videos with their computer CD.  There are more videos than in the previous edition but it still relies heavily on plain audio, so students can't see the body language of the speakers.  I approve of most of the changes made to the middle school textbook series, "New Horizon" but I wish that it didn't focus so much on reading activities.  I like the fact that the text's rewrite of the short story "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages" is no longer required reading for the third-year students and is located in the extra-reading section at the end of the book instead.  I mean, come on, that story is boring and depressing!  Also, when answering questions about the story should we consider Freddie to be a "he", or an "it"?  Not cool New Horizon!

I mentioned in a previous post that some of the teachers changed schools, and in the elementary schools they took it a step further; teachers who stayed at the same school often changed teaching-grades.  At Shiroharu Elementary for example, the two fifth grade teachers I worked with last year became a third and a fourth grade teacher, respectively.  Other apparently random shuffling occurred at all of my elementary schools.  Luckily the middle school teachers are more specialized so that can't happen with them.  The new English teacher at the middle school is a young woman whom I will call Risa-sensei.  She's actually a year younger than I am and she is very sweet but I think that some of the students can sense that and have been taking advantage of it.  So, in one particular first-year class (US seventh graders) there are a couple of boys who have been making trouble.  One boy refuses to participate in any activity and mostly sleeps during class.  Another boy is actively disruptive and will often stand up, walk around the room, and poke his neighbors during class.  From what I've heard, the first boy acts the same way in every class and it may be related to trauma from the tsunami.  The second boy only acts out in classes with inexperienced teachers so he's probably just seeking attention when he knows he can get away with it.  I'm a little unsure about how to deal with them since I'm just the assistant teacher in the situation.  I guess I'll have more updates in the posts to come.

Anyway, as I said, one of the better things about the new year has been the special education class that I usually go to once a week.  The class has only one student in it and she's very bright but has some difficulty hearing and speaking.  Since I have control over the classwork while I'm there I've been teaching the student phonics starting with consonants.  I think it's pretty much the same way that I was taught how to read (at least I remember one of the first weeks of first grade learning that M stands for mmmmm - the sound you make when eating ice cream).  Luckily the student has a great memory, so I've been having a fun time teaching her the new sounds and words.  It helps that her homeroom teacher, who is there during the English lessons, is very nice and has a great sense of humor.

In other news, I feel like somewhat of a rock-star at Michiue and Hayai Elementary since the new first graders mob me every time I walk past their classrooms and ask for my "sign" (aka autograph).  They think that my script signature is cool, then they usually ask me to "write it in English" below.  They think I'm joking when I say that the script is in English.

Next time I'll probably write about how my New England accent was affecting me in class the other day, among other things.  Darn you, "caught" and "cot"!!!

My Dad's Visit - part 3

Only a little bit left to tell, I promise!  Let's see, on Tuesday my dad and I went to Akihabara (a section of Tokyo known for its cool electronics).  We checked out a few stores just for fun and I got some portable speakers for my computer/iPhone for only 500 yen (about $6.25)!  We went to a really good Thai restaurant and had some amazing curry, then later we went to an Indian restaurant and had some more curry... we are both big curry fans.  We got stuck waiting for an elevator for about ten minutes since I mistranslated a sign (woops) and we had some really awesome mango-flavored drinks (Kalpis Mango) which were surprisingly mango-y considering that they were only 1% juice.  We also got completely lost in the labyrinth of subway/train tunnels underneath Shinjuku station (which wasn't fun but was good exercise I guess).  Unfortunately the weather was very windy and rainy that day so the baseball game got cancelled (luckily I was able to return the tickets for a refund afterward).  That night my dad got in contact with one of his work friends he hadn't seen for a couple years who lives in Tokyo and they went out to have a quick beer (I was still too tired from the labyrinth to go out).

The next morning we packed our bags and took another trip over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building because the day was clear.

If fact, the morning was so clear that we were able to see Mt.Fuji in the distance!  I couldn't believe how much snow there was on top (that's altitude for you I guess).

 Here's a picture of the Tokyo Tower as well (to the immediate left of the skyscraper).  Basically it looks very similar to the Eiffel Tower but is painted reddish orange and white.

On the way back to the hotel to pick up our bags my dad told me that he had figured out what a couple of kanji meant.  He said that he was pretty sure that the "lambda and square" (入口) meant "door".  I told him that he was close since the square-shaped one can mean mouth/hole/door, but technically 入口 (iriguchi) means entrance while 出口 (deguchi) means exit.  Doors used as both entrances and exits say 出入口 (deiriguchi).  Also, while one of the characters indeed looks like a lambda, it shouldn't be confused with the very similar kanji 人, which means "person".  One of the few kanji-related jokes that I've understood on TV had to do with 人 and 入.  In Japan, when someone is about to go on stage but they are feeling nervous people say that you should write the character for "person" 人 on your hand and pretend to eat it and it will make you feel better.  This may seem strange but really does saying, "break a leg," to wish a performer luck or imagining people in their underwear to help with stage-fright make any more sense?  Anyway, in the show I was watching a boy was trying to help a girl get over her nervousness and so he tried to write 人 on her palm... unfortunately he wrote 入 instead which doesn't really mean anything except that he should probably review his kanji since 人 and 入 are some of the very first kanji that kids learn in school... though in the show I was watching the girl did get over her nervousness because she was so busy laughing.

After my dad and I picked up our bags we headed over to the airport together via the Narita Express train.  When we got there we found out that my dad's flight had been cancelled so he was put on a flight scheduled to take off a few hours later.  This was fine with me since we got to hang out a bit more and we grabbed some lunch at an airport restaurant.  Eventually it was time for my dad to go through security and we said our good-byes.  I was a bit teary-eyed but I didn't have a lot of time to feel sad since I had to catch the express train back to Tokyo station (I just barely made it too).  But as it turns out I needn't have rushed since Tokyo station was having some shinkansen issues.  It was still pretty windy outside and a bunch of the shinkansen from different areas had been delayed.  So, I had to wait around for over an hour until my train finally came... my dad and I both had unlucky traveling days I guess.  The train ride itself was excellent as usual and Anne was nice enough to pick me up at the station even though it was snowy and windy up in Miyagi.  Actually, now that I'm typing this I realize that it hasn't snowed since then!  I felt bad though since Anne had to miss her new-teacher-welcoming party (I missed mine too since it was the same night).

Anyway, that was my dad's visit to Japan and he's said since then that he would like to come visit again.  I'm hoping that my mom and siblings will also have a chance to visit too once they have some time (and money for the plane of course).

I wasn't really planning to write anything else but I thought this pamphlet was funny.  I was a little mind-trapped by their use of the word "unconfident".  Sadly, this isn't nearly as bad as the emails I receive from my mail-based Japanese language course which contain classic lines like, "The person whom you do not yet notify please submit it hastily!"... when asking us to submit all our tests by the deadline.

... Anyway, next time I'll finally get around to talking about my new teachers and students!