Gut rake! Japan Blog

I just witnessed a rather intense case of teachers dressing down a student. I have the students do weekly journal entries to me; we just started. This week’s topic was “Families”. One of the third years (9th graders) didn’t take it seriously and wrote a bunch of almost-nonsense in handwriting resembling that of kindergarteners. I told my JTE I couldn’t understand it so she had that student write it again. He wrote it again in the same bad handwriting and I think he may have cheated or something (I didn’t understand everything my JTE said but another student was involved). This resolted in 25 minutes of the JTE and the homeroom teacher alternating between stern lecturing and brief periods of yelling at the student. This even included making the student look in the dictionary to translate the notes I had written him (“Please write clearly!”, etc) and then thrusting several 2nd year’s entries at him to show him how much better they did. It was quite scary. I had a hard time controlling my reactions because I tend to laugh when I’m surprised, but that doesn’t mean I felt it was amusing. I wish I could understand everything they had to him.

In the poor kid’s side is the fact that at least he turned it in, half the class forgot/didn’t bother/something.

In happier news I helped the students plant tulips!

From studying Japanese in order to pass the Level 3 exam in December, I’ve learned a few things lately.

• You know you’ve reached a certain point in studying Japanese when you realize you’re greatful for Kanji because it would be a bitch to try to read the language in just Hiragana, on account of there not being spaces between words
• My Japanese tutor says that the Japanese “R” is much closer to an “L“. I already knew this, but what I did not realize was how much easier it is for Japanese people to understanding me if I’m saying “L”s instead because of just HOW different the English “R” is.
• My tutor also says “Fu” is really just “Hu“, which I haven’t noticed.
• She ALSO says when I leave her office I shouldn’t say “Shitsureshimashita“, because it litterally means “I was being a nusance (or such)” and clearly I had a reason to be there. She says “Sayonara” is better, despite what the custom is, because “Sayonara” just means “good work” or “we did what we meant to do”. This I was not aware of, and had always assumed that “Sayonara” had a connotation of finality.
• That “u” at the end of long “o”s or long “u”s is not that noticible for native English speekers, but apparently Japanese people can hear it really clearly. Which is why it’s such a big deal if we forget it. My tutor spent forever going over the difference between “juui” (vet), and “jui” (tree doctor. which there are, apparently, in Kakunodate on account of the ancient Cherry trees.) But I still can’t hear it clearly.
• “Bimyou” is the best word ever. It can mean “subtle” or it can mean “dodgy”. As in, that Level 3 practice test I just took… How did I do? It was a bit bimyou.

I just had the WEIRDEST interaction with a clerk at a book store. I asked her if they had any books in English and she said no. So I decided to pay for the other stuff I was buying. It came to 2,196 yen. So I went through my change and found 2,195 yen. I couldn’t find another 1 yen piece so I said such. But she didn’t have a 1 yen either or something so I gave her 2,200 yen instead. So she looked at me and said that the bill was 2,196 yen and that I had given her 2,200 yen instead and was that ok? So I kind of glared, because she totally had missed the part where I said I needed 1 more yen. But she then asked me again if 2,200 yen was ok. I refused to say it was ok, because seriously, I had given her the money. WTF. So she then assumed I had no Japanese, despite the conversation we had JUST HAD about there not being any books in English, and wrote out “2,200 yen” on a piece of paper. Then she looked at it and crossed out the symbol for “yen” because clearly I don’t know it because I’m a foreigner with no Japanese WHATSOEVER (despite the fact I had just used a whole bunch with her). I continued to glare. But she wouldn’t just ring up my purchase, despite her already having the money, so eventually I snapped and shouted “Of course it’s ok!” in Japanese. Then she acted like nothing had happened and rang up my purchase.

Most of the time I think I’m doing OK in Japan but clearly I’m still stage-2ing hardcore. My meds better come in the mail TOMORROW.

Nothing weirder than coming home from work and finding out you’re on the cover of your city’s monthly newsletter.

The Daisen city newsletter had something about us new JETs.

The part about me says:

Jennifer Fred
(Jenifaa Fureddo)

Home country: US
Schools: Omagari Minami Middle School, Omagari Elementary School, Higashi Omagari Elementary School, Kakumagawa Elementary School, Fujiki Elementary School

Hello! I am Jennifer. I’m really excited to be in Daisen. My hobbies are video games, taking pictures, and making jewelry. It’s really good to meet you.

The little word bubble near my head says “Call me Jen”. I look quite smug, don’t I?

The rest of the page:

Yeah, I know there isnt much up here yet. See, the problem is that I really am mostly on the internet at work, and for a while I wasn’t able to get into the admin for this blog at work, leading me to think it was blocked. (Is that a big problem here? People blogging at work? I know it is in the states.)

Well, work has been pretty good. Right now I*m almost alone in the staff room at work. See, most of the teachers are in a meating right now, and I wouldn:t know what was going on anyway so I wasn:t inviteed. So mostly what I was assigned to do was help a student with his speech for a speech contest. But he didn’t show. At first I was like, “Okay, well it’s good to know that Japanese middle schoolers aren’t THAT different from American ones”, but then I found out that one of the JTEs (Japanese English Teachers) had already practiced with him today not knowing he was supposed to practice with me. Which is okay, but that was really the only thing I had to do today. So the rest of today is goofing off online, reading the students’ textbooks, and studing Japanese. Oh, and making fake work for myself.

So the fake work I’ve been doing, it’s actually a really good idea. See, Japanese students have a few major obsticles to surmount in order to learn good spoken English. Their biggest problem (besides the lack of many English sounds in the Japanese language) seems to be an unwillingness to stick their neck out in class, thus cutting down their chances to apply English in class and making it seem like none of them wan to participate. One of my handbooks says the way to overcome this is by installing incentives. One insentive is stickers. Another is creating a system where talking in class gives the students points for their teams. Also role play will help get them out of their “its class so i have to be a good little confucious-ite” mentality.

So, the plan. It’s time to Hogwarts it up. The students are going to be divided into the four houses from Harry Potter, by pulling cards out of a giant oversized hat I still need to find and purchase. Then, everytime they participate, they get points for their house (“Ten points for Gryphendor!”) That kind of thing. Then, the houses with the most points at the end of class get paper galleons which they will later be able to use to buy rewards like stickers.

Oh, and I’m decorating the rooms with HP characters. So a lot of my time so far has been downloading pictures and printing them out. It’s a sort of work, right?

So, Im in Japan! I finally am starting up the long promised Japan blog. I still dont have internet in my apartment so Im typing this from the Board of Education headquarters at the moment.

The basics:

Im an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) for a middle school in Daisen City, Akita Prefecture. Thats in the north part of Honshu (the main island). Im in the mountains right now, but it isnt any cooler like I had hoped. Ill probably be here about three years, but it could be longer or shorter. They gave me my own apartment, which was way larger than I thought it would be. Soon Ill be getting a car (a necessity), and classes start at the beginning of August.

More later!