My weekend and other random stories...

I've been teaching for 2 weeks now and I can't say whether I like it or not. It's not bad, but in the long run it may not be for me. It's really up and down and some classes go really well, while others do not. This could happen for many reasons: the students could care less about me or the material, I could be doing a better job, and/or the students are just having one of those days and the class won't go well no matter what I try to do. Overall the students are cool though.

My first lesson was a self-introduction where I spoke about myself and showed pictures and objects. The students also made name cards to help me learn their names. That in itself will be a great feat if it ever happens because I teach about 450 students per week and their names are difficult for me to pronounce, let alone remember. The name cards are really cool though. Most of the cards are really colorful and fun, especially the girls' cards. Below are pics showing the front of the cards with the students' first names and the back of the cards showing their class names. (Students are divided into 4 main classes or courses of study: architecture, civil engineering, information something-or-other which includes video editing and animation, and machinery.)



My second lesson was about greetings around the world. I told the students about different greetings and showed pics or demonstrated as necessary. Then we played a version of jeopardy that included questions about the material we had just reviewed as well as questions about languages (What language do people speak in France?) and countries (I showed the students maps and asked them the names of specific countries). The sample questions might sound dumb, especially if since my students are in high school, but you have to remember that English is not their first language and the questions were a bit difficult for some of them. They had already learned the names of countries and the languages spoken there in English, but that had been a few years ago, so they had to dig deep in order to answer the questions correctly. Some of my classes did well and the students were participating and got into the game. Others classes did not and some of the students just stared at me like I was an alien. It was all I could do to get them to participate and answer questions.

My favorite classes continue to be the ones that are all boys, as well as two classes of 6 students each, which are mostly girls. My largest class is 36 students with boys and girls and it's sometimes hard to control—mainly because the girls like to talk, even when I'm speaking.

School has been more work than I thought it would be and last week I had to work on my lesson plans almost every night after work. Hopefully this will stop happening after I become better and faster at making the lessons. I also spend more time then is probably necessary designing handouts—not that I would put them in my portfolio, because they're not that great. But they are better than the stuff my predecessor put together and I couldn't still call myself a designer if I didn't care a little bit about how they looked.

This weekend was a much needed long weekend. Monday was "Respect for the Aged Day" and a day off. Long weekends mean that most ALTs travel, and I wasn't an exception. My weekend was super busy and started with a big welcome party thrown by my school. It was at an Italian restaurant and the food was amazing. The only problem was that the staff didn't understand that vegetarians do NOT eat fish, so the first plate that came my way had a big piece of fried fish on it. It wasn't obvious that it was fish, so I took a bite and then realized what I was eating. It wasn't horrible, but I still have no desire to add fish to my diet. My supervisor had to speak to one of the waiters to ensure that the rest of my meal was, indeed, vegetarian.

About 28 teachers, including the principal and one of the vice principals, came. It was so much fun and I regret not being able to speak Japanese because I wasn't able to have real conversations with most of them. Below are some pics, including one of an all veggie dish prepared especially for me.








After dinner a small group of us went to a hostess bar where we had whiskey and water (horrible), some snacks (not bad), and did karaoke. It was my second time karaoking in Japan, but my first time doing so with Japanese people. It was fun to watch and listen to them—even if I couldn't understand what they were singing. I sang a couple of songs with two of the teachers. One was an Elvis song. The other was Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." I was terrible and got into a laughing fit for that reason during "Uptown Girl." The teachers on the other hand all had great voices and took karaoke very seriously. After every song, the computer gave the singer(s) a score and most were very good.

Saturday I met up with four friends and went to a town about an hour south of Kanazawa called Fukui. We spent Saturday and Sunday going to a dinosaur museum, a Buddhist temple, and come cliffs where an evil Buddhist priest was supposedly thrown to his death by angry villagers in 1182. Below is a pic taken from the top of the cliffs. (Click on it for a larger view.)




Other pics can be viewed on my Flickr site by going to this url:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/90319390@N00/sets/72157602052275177/

So that was my weekend. Tomorrow I begin teaching some new lessons. Wish me luck! Next weekend is another long weekend, which I am looking forward to because I will be in Kyoto with friends :)