New experiences at school

On Fridays I teach at Isohara Kyoei High School. Last Friday was their cultural festival and the theme was 'Enjoy Our Moments'. All high schools in Japan have a cultural festival or bunkasai, but at different times. Isohara's festival is every other year, with a sports festival on the off years. Usually it is a big production that is open to the community, but this year because of the spread of swine flu it was just open to students and teachers at Isohara. In the morning the whole school met in the gym and Kocho Sensei (principal) and some other students leaders gave short welcoming speeches. The students played an interactive true/false game on trivia questions about the school's history.


Afterwards there was a talent show with different groups of students performing songs and dances. A popular type of dance in Japan is para para with hand motions set to a song. Several groups did para para dancing to popular j-pop songs. There was also a teacher group with a guitarist and two singers.

In the afternoon there were two performances by professionals. The first was called Booley Ooly Company, yep their real name! They juggled and performed different magic tricks. The next performer was a little strange and I couldn't quite figure out what he was. He was part mimer/magician/gymnist. Anyways, it held the students' attention and they enjoyed it.

Saturday was the big day of the festival, so after school all the students began setting up their booths in the classrooms. Each classroom was a different venue with a theme. Some were being transformed into cafes, others were game rooms and one was a haunted house. What amazed me was that most of the students were working without the supervision of a teacher. I really wanted to go the festival on Saturday to see all the final products and experience it all, but I had to go into work at Takahagi High School. It was a fun and exciting day for both students and teachers.



This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to visit Isohara Jr. High School. I was really excited to see and teach at a Japanese Jr High. In the morning I taught at Kita Ibaraki High School and after lunch one of the JTEs from Takahagi High School came to pick me up. It was a special day and the Jr. High had invited different teachers from the surrounding high schools to come teach for the day. I'm always amazed at the formalities and care that go into events. When we arrived at the school we were ushered into the principals office met with numerous bows and given tea. We were joined by some teachers from Isohara High School and Hitachi Technical School. We all waited anxiously in the office for the bell to ring, signaling the next class. After climbing about 5 flights of stairs we arrived at the 2nd grade classroom with balconies on both sides, overlooking the parking lot.

The classroom was packed with 40 students for the first class. One of the differences I noticed between jr high and high school was the school uniform. Jr high students' uniforms were more casual and resembled track suits with each student's name written on it. My ALT friend who sometimes teaches at this school said all the students eat the school lunch in the classroom. She eats with them and says lunchtime is quite the production. Each student is assigned a job for lunch whether its serving the food, arranging trays, or clean-up and of course its highly efficient. The students seemed so small compared to the high schoolers I see everyday. It was a nice change and reminded me of teaching at Crone.

As I started introducing myself in English I could see students' mouths dropping and eyes start to bulge. Soon after a student yelled out, 'You're an English speaker?!' They were expecting two native Japanese teachers and were shocked that I was the ALT. So Ishikawa Sensei had to explain the story of my family history and then the nods of understanding soon followed. She did this for the next class too, she is so good. We had decided to take the opportunity to teach the students about high school life. We brought brochures for them to look at and wrote a mock letter from the perspective of a high school student. The students practiced repeating the letter in English and wrote reply letters about themselves and fears about high schools. They were so eager to write and did a great job, much to my amazement. I learned a lot about them through their letters and enjoyed talking with them during class.

When we finished teaching we returned to the principals office to receive bows of thanks and more tea. On our way out the door we were also given a nicely wrapped box of cookies. It was a busy and exhausting day of teaching, but a rewarding new experience!