What will it be?

A drawing by Yoshinori Takata and myself.
This was from a listening activity using comparatives.

In November, my supervisor at the BOE handed me my re-contracting forms and asked me if I would like to stay and teach another year.
Even prior to being officially offered another contract, a third year teaching in Oshima is something that has been weighing heavily upon my mind. I told my supervisor I would need time to think it over because I really wasn't sure at the moment if a third year is something I would be interested in doing. My supervisor understood and told me that he would need my final decision by February 1st.

With only a few days left until my decision needs to be made it came as no surprise to me that today after class my supervisor brought up the topic of the re-contracting forms. After briefly asking me how my classes had gone today my supervisor points to my re-contracting forms and tells me that if I need a little more time to decide, I can turn in my forms on the following Monday (Feb. 4th). After a moments pause to gather his thoughts he then says in his best English, " In a third year it is your happiness most important. It's your choice. Make your happiness choice". As much as I have heard these sentiments in their varying forms from friends and family it wasn't until I heard my supervisor saying them in his broken English that I really felt the impact of what these words mean.

I'm not sure if I believe in fate, but I'm not sure that I am convinced it  was mere coincidence that today- a day where I left school thinking about how much I love my students, even the trouble maker ones that cause me stress,- of all days would be the day that I would be so clearly directed to make the decision that makes me happiest.
I don't always love living in Japan. And I certainly don't always love living in Oshima. Heck, I don't even always love teaching. But one thing that I do know is that I love my students and I love to see them learning and progressing. It's often the small, nearly missable moments that makes my job feel so rewarding.  Like today when my first and second graders hosted a school fair for the older students. This was a free period, in substitute of a lunch recess, for the students to play fair/festival style games but as I walked through the gaming areas observing my students playing I could catch bits of English floating around: students counting out how many bowling pins had been knocked down, excitement over the prizes they won (cool/cute), and exclamations of "I'm winner".  Other times it is something more obvious that makes me realize how much I love teaching my students.  Many of my junior high school boys hate the fact that they are required to take English. Often when it is time to do speaking activities they will cheat and just show their friends the answer or tell them in Japanese what they are supposed to practice speaking. However, after some one-on-one practice to pronounce and understand the words on their worksheets they are at least a little more eager to try it out/show off to their friends. But the best feeling usually comes after, when in our next class these same boys will timidly raise their hands and ask me to come over and help them understand what a problem is asking instead of just copying off of their friends (or even worse) going to sleep.
Then of course there is also the blatantly obvious that serves as a daily reminder why I tolerate living in rural Oshima. The most egotistically rewarding part of my job, when I see my students reactions as I enter the school and English classroom. After about a year and a half of teaching them I assumed that my original novelty would wear off and that my students would begin to greet me with the standard mumbled "ohayo/konnichiwa" that most teachers receive. But no, everyday without fail my elementary students run through the halls (as fast as it is allowed) shouting, "Keri sensei", rushing to see who will be the first to get to me to say whatever English they can most easily recall that day (good morning, how are you, I'm cold, etc.) Even my most jaded of 3rd year junior high school students when looking up from whatever manga they are reading hidden inside of their English text book will give me a surprised "woah, keri sensei"as I enter the classroom, followed by a very brief smile before going back to their faux studying.  I don't know for certain how much of an affect I have on my students and their motivations to practice English, but I do know they have deeply affected me.

Even now after writing all of this I'm still not 100% sure which choice is the right answer for me. I'm certain that no matter what my final decision will be I will feel some degree of regret to either stay or to leave. Will I love living in Japan another year. Maybe, but maybe not. Will I love living in Oshima another year? Probably not. Will I be happy teaching my students for another year? Maybe not everyday, but there will be those days and those moments that makes the rest of the year and living in Oshima worth it. Is this post saying for certain that I will stay another year? Not at all. From the very first day back in November when I was asked if I would like to stay another year I knew my decision would not be made until the very last day when I draw out my signature and put the little tick next to  the box marked yes or the boxed marked no, and so it will be. I have a lot to think about still and even though I am leaning to stay one final year, I need to make sure that it is my "happiness choice"

Some photos from the school fair today

Prizes that students could win from the fair/gamebooths

Students seeing if they can complete the puzzles in 2 minutes to win a prize

One of the most popular games was this fishing game. There were 10 fishes with a metal paper clip inside them. Students had 1 minute and 30 seconds to catch as many with their fishing pole baited with a small magnet.

End of fall term and preparations for 冬休み

At the Japanese shrine prayer for nice healthy New Year for everyone.

                                  Probably also praying for it to not be so cold.
                                                       (P.C. Mom)

This past Wednesday I taught my last English class of the fall/winter trimester. In some ways I feel like this trimester has been the most successful yet from my time teaching here. I've been able to implement fun Western/American cultural activities and also participate in Japanese culture activities. Teachers and I are working well together which has me feeling really confident in class. However, I'm also extremely aware that in 3 months the Great Teacher Rotation/Musical Chairs:Teacher Edition will be taking place and therefore can not get too comfortable. The Japanese school system really does likes to keep you on your feet!
One of my favorite class activities that I did this trimester was teaching my students about Halloween and carving a proper American pumpkin in class! It was so cute to see how excited the kids were. They have never carved a pumpkin before let alone actually seen a pumpkin in real life. They were really impressed by the smell of the pumpkin and were in shock when I told them that the pumpkins we were carving would be considered relatively small by American standards of Halloween pumpkins. While we didn't learn/use much English during this class, it was a great way to teach my students a little more about me and to share some of my child hood memories.

The pumpkin that my 1st graders carved.

The pumpkin that my 2nd graders carved.

My most successful English class of this year may have been my last one, this past Wednesday.  In class we were reviewing the names of months and how to say numbers as dates (i.e. first vs. one). In our previous class together we had learned all of the months as well as the dates, and so this class we were just reviewing and applying the vocabulary to class activities to make sure that they retained the information and hopefully have it stored into the student's long-term memory. One of my greatest challenges with teaching this lesson was primarily in the students pronunciation. Many people think that pronunciation is a small/secondary trait in language acquisition. But as I have learned over the past year, if you do not correct them immediately they will continue to pronounce it wrong out of habit until it becomes so ingrained that teaching them the correct pronunciation is almost akin to teaching completely new words. And in some cases, the students cannot recognize the word when it is pronounced properly because they have become accustomed to remembering it with their own pronunciation or the katakana-ized version of English (that damn bastard language that defiles English learning in Japan; more on this in another post).
The problematic words for my students were months ending in ~ber and dates ending in ~th.. Instead of producing the brrrrrr sound my students would respond with a resounding baaaaa (i.e. Novem-ba, Septem-ba). And in the case of the "th" sound initially they would produce a suh sound,. like nineteen-suh and then they moved on to a ts .Nineteen-suh Ninteen-ts. So one of the goals I had set out for this final day of studying dates was to get my students to produce the TH sound. So as we started about with a quick run through of the dates and I made sure to over emphasize the th sound. December nineteenTTTH. To which my students cheerfully responded Decembaa Nineteents. I shake my head and say, listen carefully. NineteenTTTH not Ninteentsss. And I had them try again, to no avail. After a few more failed attempts I decided to switch my tactics and pronunciation a bit to see if it would produce closer results. So instead of emphasizing the (for lack of a better explanation) hissing sort of sound of th I changed it to a TH closer along the lines used when saying, The. And finally my students were able to produce a nineteen-th, twentie-th (they did over emphasize the TH sound, but at least it was a th and not a su or ts., so I can't really complain). Unfortunately, after moving on from review and into classroom application only a few of my students retained the newly learned information of saying TH and not ts or su. Which wasn't helped by the Japanese Homeroom Teacher whispering along fourtien(insert whatever date)-ts whenever the student would give answers during the activities. SMH. I'm still proud of my minor success.

In other news, I am getting ready to go on vacation for my winter break (冬休み）. I thought it might be fun to have a little trivia game for you to guess where I am going (if you don't know already). So throughout my vacation (whenever I have access to a computer or wireless #iphone) I will give you small hints either photos or random clues about my location. If I already told you where I am going don't ruin the fun!



Where in the World is Keri Going?
Hint 1: 
My travel time from Osaka, Japan to my winter vacation location (like that rhyme?) is a total of about 7 hours (not including the about 3 hour transfer wait time in Vietnam).

Year 2 Post 1

Hi Guys! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, although I'm not really sure if anyone takes notice other than my mom and dad. (Thanks Dad for letting me know you miss seeing my blog updates, you've actually inspired me to write this small update)..

Just for the sake of having a picture in this post
Image Courtesy of Google

This post is just a small update on how year 2 has been so far. You can expect (or hope) to get posts of more substance later that will detail what I have been up to. So far Year 2 has been frustrating and confusing, but also really rewarding.
A lot of frustrations come from the fact that there is a second ALT this year who is at the moment splitting all of my schools with me. So we are alternating taking turns visiting all of the 16 elementary and junior high schools on Oshima. Getting used to having another ALT around the office has been an adjustment to say the least. But the truly frustrating part is that we both have very different teaching styles and also just plain personal characteristics, which sometimes clash (i.e. I like to take my time when planning and making decisions because I believe it allows me to assess and evaluate my ideas/thoughts from a variety of angels whereas my new co-worker loves to make impetuous decisions. With her everything must be planned for immediately and she has no patience to compromise).Thankfully, I think we are finally beginning to find a happy medium, we`ll see. It will certainly make life around the office much more bearable.

A lot of my close friends and family know that I went home to Hawaii for just over a week at the end of August. There isn't a whole lot to say about it because I was only there for such a short time. But it was really great to see my family, my Houdini (bunny), and congratulate my best friend in person for her recent engagement!!!
During that short week at home I was able to appreciate all the stupid things I used to take for granted. Which mostly entailed food (easy access to foods that I love to eat, and realizing how much easier it is to be a vegetarian with a varied diet when you can stop by a whole foods on the regular). Seriously, Whole Foods (and other natural food shops) is probably one of the things that I miss the most (on a regular basis) about living in America.

Upon returning to Japan I felt so ready for this year to be over. I couldn't wait to get back home to enjoy the beach, people speaking English, seeing my best friend get married, and of course American grocery stores!!!! I would look at the calender and count down how many months it would be until I would be going home again and feel excited to see that one month was gone from my long wait. Now though, I have been looking at the calender and think the exact opposite. Whenever I am at my schools my students are so excited to see me and I think to myself that I only have 9 more months with them. In the beginning of October I went to one of my schools sports days and I realized that this might be the last sports day I get to attend (and only half of a sports day at that, since I had to teach english lessons at a different school earlier the same day), thinking about this would have brought me to tears if I wasn't surrounded by all of the students and staff.
And I find myself more and more frequently wondering, "would it really be so bad for me to stay just one more year?", right now I'm not really sure. I have a lot to think about until February.

All of these slight frustrations aside my life has been going pretty smoothly. All of my classes have been going really smoothly. I'm visiting my schools a lot more frequently this year (which would account for the fewer blog posts. Less office days:less blog posts) and I have been able to implement a lot of my own ideas into my elementary classes which has kept things exciting for me. The most recent success was the Halloween lessons I did for my schools, which at one school included carving pumpkins! Also, thanks to the help of workers at the Board of Education I was able to spearhead the 1st annual trick-or treating event on Oshima. Only a handful of my elementary students actually participated, but I'm hoping if the tradition continues next year it will become even more popular!

Now I need to get back to studying a bit for my GRE (taking it on Nov. 17th!!! wish me luck). You can expect my next blog post to be sometime after then.
For now I have a lot to think about.

Keri