Last week I started working at my base junior high school, Hassamu Chu-Gakko. The very first day was very nerve-wracking. I was almost late to work, I was sweating profusely, and I couldn't remember my introduction speeches! I had attempted to memorize some short introductions in Japanese, but all of the words kind of jumbled together. Normally, my Japanese pronunciation is fairly decent, but when the nerves are going, one's tongue suddenly can't pronounce one coherent word. I had to stand up in front of the school and introduce myself, which was admittedly terrifying! I didn't know what to say and hundreds of people were all staring blankly at me. Some student-teachers were also starting on the same day, so that helped calm me down a little bit. When we went on stage to introduce ourselves, being THE foreigner, I had to speak myself first. After I stumbled through my introduction and got offstage, one of the JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English), Ueda-sensei, came over to talk with me. She asked, "Are you okay?" I let out a sigh of relief and said, "Hai." She then said, "I could tell you were nervous." Haha. Later, Ueda-sensei gave me a tour of the school. It's an older school, but very beautiful. I was surprised at how big it is. Right next door to the junior high, there is an elementary school. It so nice to walk home and here the little school children singing or practicing their instruments in music class. Right in front of the school there are some little ponds, trees and benches for all of the children to sit on. There is also a little greenhouse and small gardens that the students for use for their classes. I was only there for one week, and I must say that I was very sad to leave. However, I will return in November. It's just a little frustrating because just as I started feeling more comfortable with some of the other sensei, I had to tell them "See you!" (That is one of the most common English phrases that Japanese students know. Every once in a while you'll hear them change it up by saying, "See you tomorrow!" Or even, "See you next week.") My head JTE is, Miki-sensei. She is amazing! She is so nice and speaks English very well. She wants me to start teaching her Spanish. I told her my Spanish is very bad, but I will try to teach her what few phrases I do know. (Haha, most of which relate to food. Imagine that!) My desk is right in the center of the room, directly in front of Koucho-sensei (Principal) and Kiyouto-sensei (Vice-Principal). So, my first couple of days I felt as though I always needed to look like I was busy. Koucho-sensei was only there on my first day, and from what I understand, I will rarely ever see him. The Kiyouto-sensei is very nice, but doesn't speak a word English, so our interactions have been very limited. The truth is that many of the teachers do speak English, but there are very nervous about speaking it. Who can blame them? I feel the same way about my Japanese. However, some of the other sensei have been very brave and have tried speaking with me. It's been great practice for me because they will speak to me in English and I'll try my best to use every single Japanese word that I know (which is not a lot). The geography teacher, Nakai-sensei, is so cool! He is from Osaka, so he speaks Osaka-ben, which is basically a different dialect of Japanese. He told me that the sounds are similar to that of Spanish pronunciation. In Osaka, they roll their "r" sounds, so Nakai-sensei enjoys saying Spanish words with "r" letters in them, like "Buenos tarrrrdes." Haha. I just so happen to sit right across from the Japanese sensei, and I tried my best to speak Japanese with her. And I promised her that I would try to be a good student and study as much Nihongo (Japanese) as possible.
(By the way this is my base junior high school:
And here is a link to their website： http://www.hassamu-j.sapporo-c.ed.jp/ Beware, it's all in Japanese.)
For the rest of September, I will be going to two different elementary schools a week. I'm really excited about it because the children are very "genki" (excited/happy). They are also very cute!!! Going to elementary schools is also a great way to practice Japanese, because most of the staff doesn't speak English and it's fun to converse with the children because they are all still at the beginners level of Japanese---which just so happens to be my level as well! So on Monday, I ventured off to Yamanote Elementary School. It was wonderful! The staff is so nice and the kids were a lot of fun. Almost none of the staf spoke any English, but they still tried their best, which made me want to try even harder to speak Japanese. The principal introduced me at an assembly in the gym. It was so funny to sit there and have all of the little children stare at you with wide eyes and they mouths dangling open. I couldn't stop looking at this one little boy who was really short compared to his classmates. He was so cute. He had on these really thick glasses, and what was so cool about him was that he basically looked like an old man stuck in a little boy's body. I know that may sound strange, but you would agree if you saw him. He was also kinda lost in his own little world. He was really cool. I also couldn't stop looking at this little boy who was picking his nose like there was no tomorrow. It was hilarious. He was sitting directly in front of me and Koucho-sensei. And, of course, what did the little boy do after picking his nose? Well, I think everyone knows where I'm going with this, so I'll just move on. Since I mentioned Koucho-sensei, I must say that he was also a great person, as well. He always had a smile on his face. And what they call the, "Team Teacher in Charge," who was basically responsible for me, was extremely friendly. Shimura-sensei (the "Team Teacher in Charge") tried so hard to speak English with me and taught me a lot of Japanese words, phrases, and special words in the Hokkaido dialect. And, of course, once he taught a new phrase in Hokkaido-ben, he made me use it with everyone.
I was only at Yamanote for 2 days, so each day I went to 3 classes. I introduced myself with pictures and all, and then played games with the kids. Some of the kids spoke very good English! In fact, all of the students spoke very good English, but they were a little shy, which is understandable. However, they all became comfortable after I introduced myself and played games with them. I really enjoyed working at elementary school because I got to eat lunch with the students. They are so much and I just tried to use every Japanese word I knew on them. It was funny when they laughed and said, "Sugoi, Celeste-sensei!" as I picked up my chopsticks. They were amazed that I was capable of eating with "hashi" (chopsticks). One thing that's very cool about Japanese schools is that everyone is expected to play an important role in the school. This practice echoes the philosophy of Japan as a country. It is not about the individual, it about the collective. The community. During the lunch hour, the lunch ladies bring a cart of food to each classroom and the students serve the food to each other. They all run to their bags, put on aprons and begin passing out food. They all sit down at the same time, begin the meal together, and end the meal at the same time. Afterwards, they all have their jobs in cleaning up the room. It's such an amazing sight to see them working together.
This is also a great time because the teachers spend a lot of time visiting with each student. The position of teacher holds a great deal of honor here in Japan. Most teachers works very long hours and act very often act as surrogate parents to many of the children. Japanese people possess an amazing work ethic and therefore, many of the parents don't get to spend as much time with their children. So, teachers will step in and spend a lot of time just playing with the kids, in addition to actually teaching them. I'm not sure, but I wonder what some people's impressions of Japan are. I feel as though some people may look at Japan as a very stiff, somewhat cold country when it comes to showing affection. Well, I've only been here 1 month, and I cannot speak for an entire country, but the people I have met and worked with are very warm and kind to their students.
Definitely one of the highlights for me was visiting with the Special Education students. Shimura-sensei was giving me a tour of the school and we decided to stay awhile in the Special Education class. I am capable of reading basic Japanese, so I was very excited when I saw that they were learning a song in basic Japanese. By far, it has been one of my favorite moment while visiting this beautiful country. We were all singing together about friendship. And I even got to dance with some of the students! Speaking singing, one of the many treats was that the students would sing for me. On my first day, I sang "Old MacDonald" with the students and on the second day, the students sang a Japanese song for me. They began to harmonize and occassionally danced along to the songs. It was so beautiful that I seriously got a little teary.
I had a couple of girls that kept following me and dragging me to different classrooms. It was so funny. One of the teachers called me an "idol." And I immediately replied, "No, no, no." Haha. One girl was slightly scary, because she got very emotional anytime that I was near. She started breathing very heavily and kept saying, "I love you. I love you." I tried to calm her down and talk with her. She was very sweet. The boys were really funny. When I told them that I like basketball, they always responded with an "Ehhhhh!!!" Because, I guess girls aren't supposed to like basketball. Haha. They also seemed to like it when I showed a picture of bar-b-que. Some of the boys started complaining about being hungry. And sometimes, students will ask very difficult questions like, "What is the difference between Japan and America?" I just so happened to get this question when some parents were visiting their childrens' classes. I immediately drew a blank. Then ｓｕｄｄｅｎｌｙ Ｉ ｔｈｏｕｇｈｔ ａｂｏｕｔ ｆｏｏｄ． Ａｎｄ ｔｈａｔ ｓｅｅｍｅｄ ｔｏ ｇｅｔ ｍｅ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ａ ｔｏｕｇｈ ａｎｓｗｅｒ．（Ｐｌｅａｓｅ ｅｘｃｕｓｅ ｔｈｅ ｆｏｎｔ ｃｈａｎｇｅ． Ｉ’ｍ ｔｙｐｉｎｇ ｏｎ ａ Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ ｋｅｙｂｏａｒｄ， ｓｏ ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅｓ ｔｈｅ ｆｏｎｔ／ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ ｃｈａｎｇｅｓ ａｎｄ Ｉ ｈａｖｅ ｔｏ ｆｉｇｕｒｅ ｉｔ ｏｕｔ．）
All of the students and staff were great to me. Shimura-sensei apparentely loves to jump rope, so he started showing me tricks in the hallway as students and teachers passed by. And, of course, the foreigner had to try as well! Haha. Later he taught me how to do origami. We did the traditional crane, but he showed me a different and slightly more complicated way of doing it. Afterwards, he made me a double-crane, which was really cool! I'll try to post pictures of it.
Ｔｏｍｏｒｒｏｗ Ｉ ｓｔａｒｔ ａｔ ａ ｎｅｗ ｅｌｅｍｅｎｔａｒｙ ｓｃｈｏｏｌ ａｎｄ Ｉ’ｍ ｓｕｒｅ ｉｔ’ｌｌ ｂｅ ａ ｎｅｗ ａｄｖｅｎｔｕｒｅ ａｓ ｗｅｌｌ．
Ｓｔｅｒｅｏｓ ｉｎ ｇｒｏｃｅｒｙ ｓｔｏｒｅｓ
Ｓｍｏｋｉｎｇ ｒｏｏｍｓ
Ｆｏｏｄ ｅｘｃｈａｎｇｅ
Ｍｏｖｉｅｓ
Ｇｒｏｕｐ Ｃ ａｒｒｉｖｅｓ
Ｃｌｕｂｂｉｎｇ ｗｉｔｈ ｔｈｅ ｇａｉｊｉｎｓ
Ｓｔｕｐｉｄ ｄｒａｍａ ｂｅｔｗｅｅｎ ＡＬＴｓ （Ｓａｄｌｙ， ｓｏｍｅ ｐｅｏｐｌｅ ｎｅｖｅｒ ｓｔｏｐ ａｃｔｉｎｇ ｌｉｋｅ ｔｈｅｙ ａｒｅ ｉｎ ｈｉｇｈ ｓｃｈｏｏｌ．．．）
