My First Day Teaching at ES

My desk at ES. On the left are gifts from 1st graders.

When I arrived at school this morning, Kocho-sensei greeted me with a look of confusion and then started talking about which days I was supposed to be there, which in turn confused me and I had a minor moment of panic where I thought I had messed up. Turns out Kocho-sensei thought I came on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, instead of Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I had some free time in the teacher's room until my class at third period. I spent the time printing out and binding copies of the lesson plans in English - very useful!

My class was at 10:40 with 6-1. I started with my self introduction powerpoint presentation. The kids were really responsive and loved the short video I showed. Interestingly when I show the video the kids always point out the northern lights ("aura").

After that all the kids did self introductions for me. They were really good - I was so pleased!

Next I got my first taste of actually teaching. The JTE and I taught the kids some vocabulary for directions and buildings. Next we played a game called ohajiki. Basically, its like bingo, but the students picked 5 buildings from a diagram of 13. I called out the vocabulary words one by one and the first to get all 5 picks called wins! They loved it!

Classes are shorter at ES, so that was all we had time for. I hung out in the teacher's room for a bit until it was lunch time. Then I went back to 6-1 and ate lunch in their classroom. It was curry rice! And an omelette with tomato sauce inside, and a vegetable salad with creepy little fish in it. And milk.

The kids invited me to play with them, as after lunch they have 1 hour of free time. I went out and they tried to explain the rules of their game, but then the kids sort of wandered off and I was attacked by a bunch of cute little first graders. They came up and grabbed my hand, saying, "isshou ni asobu?" (shall we play together?) in the cutest way, so I said sure! I played a bunch of games with them; I had no clue what was going on, but man, those kids tired me out! We were running all around outside the school for the entire hour, including up and down the stairs of their mountain-side garden several times. Finally the bell rang and I was free! I collapsed into my chair in the teacher's room, sweating profusely.

A little later, K-sensei took me on a little tour of the school. She showed me the English books in the library. The kids have mandatory 10 minutes of reading every morning before school, so each day I go and read to a different class.

Around 3pm I saw a bunch of 1st graders leaving, so I wandered out to the hallway to wave them off. A bunch of them came up to me to say goodbye. They really liked the braids in my hair - one girl asked if I did it myself, hehe. The first graders are really the cutest, I wish I got to teach them too!

My First Class

As I've mentioned, I go to the JHS on Mon / Wed / Fri. However, we discovered yesterday that the ES opening ceremony was on a Wednesday, so it was decided that I should go there until 10am and then return to the JHS .

I arrived a bit early at the ES, as the ceremony started at 9:00 am. I used this chance to give kocho-sensei a gift for the school, which was several books in English. There is a famous Canadian author from my city ( Robert Munsch), and I included two of his books.

I sat in my desk until the ceremony began, watching the kids walk past the teacher's room to the gym. Some of them stared, some waved, and one stopped dead in her tracks with a look of shock and awe. I also met a lady from the town office, who was there to take notes and photos for a column in the town newsletter!

After all the students had entered the gym, I came in and stood at the back. Kocho-sensei did an opening type of speech first, which also included a lecture about greetings. He even had a graph for all the kids! I have no idea how one makes a graph about greetings, but I guess this is serious business. After his speech, there was another speech introducing me. At one point he told them all to look where I was standing or something, because all of a sudden the faces of 200 kids were glued to where I was and the little first graders at the back were all leaping in the air trying to get a look at me. Then Kyoto-sensei showed me to the stage, and then it was time for my self introduction! I basically said the same thing as at the JHS. I exited the stage and stood with the other teachers.

Next up was an awards ceremony for swimming. I was standing beside the first graders, and one little boy caught my eye as he fidgeted with his shirt and nametag and kept whining about how hot it was. I feel ya, kid. There was also a huge dragonfly circulating the gym, which caused a lot of the kids to lose attention. After that was a review of the importance of greetings and several other things. The teacher who lead this did so by holding up the written hiragana which was the first letter of the word (ex. A for aisatsu, greetings). At one point he held up mi, and one little boy excitedly shouted, 'MISO!'

At the end of the ceremony, I went back to the staff room and had a very awkward interview with the lady from the newsletter. I felt bad for her, she had no idea how to translate what she wanted to ask me. We were a little late, so Kyoto-sensei called the JHS to let them know and the newsletter lady walked me over there.

I WAS Supposed to Have a Lesson first period with Handicapped students, but I missed That Being at ES. So My first Lesson WAS at half past one pm with 2 nd Graders (Grade 8). the When I got to School I did some planning with Lesson the JTE for that class, which helped me feel a little more secure.

At 11:20 am, N-san came by the staff room. She held out a folder to me with some sticky notes on it, which started 'Anje, Thank you for your BIG help!' I was confused, like, what did I to help whom? Anyway, I read a little further and I guess someone wanted me to help translate and proofread some information on Chizu! I'm actually pretty excited, to think that I can help with something like that. She also had me fill out some information and stamp my personal seal on some documents for health insurance. For some reason Justin had been named as the family provider instead of me ?! Anyway, the paperwork was to show that Justin and Yana are my dependents.

Around 12:45 I went to the kitchen to eat lunch with Kyoto-sensei. Today was rice, milk, chikuwa and bamboo salad thing, fried fish with tonkatsu sauce, and tofu and wakame soup. The fish was actually alright! I was' Thrilled with the t Shikuwa or Soup Though, so I WAS glad WHEN Kyoto-Sensei HAD to leave Quickly. But then the Office Ladies Came in to Eat with me! They're all really Understanding, Though. I feel bad! Oh, I also had to pay for my school lunch today! It is Y315 a day! I kinda dislike the lunches, but its so freaking cheap. Its almost worth it anyway, because the rice is always good and I can take the milk home for Yana or for cooking.

After lunch, at 1:30 pm was my first class! I was a bit nervous, but actually not that much because it was mostly just a self-introduction class rather than actually teaching. J-sensei came to pick me up from the teacher's room and we ran to class together (ran because we were late!). Our lesson plan was to do greetings, have me to a brief verbal self-introduction, give the students a quiz about me and have them guess the answers. I was amused to see one student use a pencil to answer the multiple choice questions - she has carved away the end and written A, B, C, D on each side and would roll the pencil to get a random answer.

Then I did a powerpoint presentation about myself and also included the answers to the quiz. In one slide I had a collage of me with Canadian things ... one boy thought the beaver was a capybara! After the presentation, J-sensei went over the answers again. Lastly, we had each student do a short self introduction. They had to say their name, what they liked, and what they play. One student said, 'I like keshigomi (eraser).' I could not stop laughing ! The class (2-1) is really energetic and silly, but they're a bit shy when it comes to English. They all speak very loudly in Japanese and so quietly in English that I had to stand at each person's desk to hear them speak. They seemed happy enough with the class though, so I feel okay about that!

My First Day At Chizu ES

Chizu Elementary School entrance.

I only visit my elementary school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and for some reason I couldn't visit last week, so today was my first day! Because of that, I wasn't sure if today was the opening ceremony (first day of classes) or not. Just in case, I tried to go prepared with my suit, a powerpoint self introduction, props, and omiyage.

For some reason, N-san told me we would walk to school together today, I'm not sure why, but it was nice to have the company. She also informed me that the opening ceremony is tomorrow, so I guess I brought all that stuff for no reason. Ah well.

N-san brought me into the teacher's room and dropped me off. I was shown to my desk and I had just started going through all the stuff in there when K-sensei approached me. She isn't one of my JTEs (she's a first grade home room teacher), but she speaks English probably the best. She helped explain the school schedule and my class schedule. She also introduced me to the 4 JTEs I will work with, who sit behind me: R-sensei, N-sensei, H-sensei, and K-sensei (a different K of course).

At 9:00am we had a teacher's meeting. I didn't really understand most of it, but I could tell that the teachers were talking about situations in some student's lives. I thought that was really interesting. When announcements were done all the teachers introduced themselves to me and then I did a short introduction myself.

After the meeting K-sensei took me and all the JTEs upstairs to the classroom to discuss lesson plans for Thursday and next Tuesday. I only teach 5th and 6th grade, two classes each, so although I teach 4 classes total, there are only two plans.

Once the English meeting was over, it was time for desk warming, a.k.a. shuffling papers and randomly making notes to look busy. Actually it wasn't toooooo bad, since I still had a ton of stuff in my desk that I wanted to look over.

Lunch time came around, and I hadn't brought my lunch because I wasn't sure if it would be provided today or not. It was okay, though, because K-sensei took me and the other K-sensei and three other teachers to lunch at a restaurant down the road called Foret de Claige. I ended up ordering some kind of pizza with possibly deer sausage? Also some kind of soup which just tasted like warm cream, a dish of spaghetti, sausage, and mushrooms, and a pretty delicious salad/coleslaw thing. It was really fun and the teachers were all so nice and talkative. They kept asking all about me and Yana and Justin. They also recommended a preschool for Yana.

Accidentally, we were 5 minutes late getting back to school, because at 1:00pm there was some kind of computer training. I have no idea what it was about, and I don't have a laptop on my desk, so I had to sort of entertain myself quietly for 2 hours. I was so bored that I started translating the all-Japanese lesson plans for the English textbook. My supervisor from the BOE, O-san, was actually sitting beside me (he was visiting for the computer training) and noticed me and went and exclaimed to K-sensei and the JTEs about this crazy and sad thing I was doing. So then what started as me mostly wasting time ended up as a big kerfluffle as O-san translated the page for me instead of doing his computer training!

Computer training finally ended and K-sensei told me I could go home. I slowly got my things together and ended up in the hallway looking and photos on a bulletin board. She found me out there and told me again to go home. I left for home and it was actually sunny for once, so I really enjoyed the scenery on the way.

A view of the school grounds, taken from the entrance. Further down the road to the left is the JHS.

My First (Real) Day at Chizu JHS

Today was my first day of real school! Its also actually just my third day at school. I have yet to visit the elementary school either, so it feels strange, like I only have one school. I kinda wish I only had one school. I don’t know how people with like 9+ schools do it.

Anyway, I walked to school, in the rain again, and I guess I must have been a bit early because I didn’t pass any students. I got there at about 8:05 or 8:10am.

The bell rang at 8:15am, and in the teacher’s room we had morning announcements. I didn’t understand most of it, but I knew that today was testing day. I also knew that I had to give a speech in front of the whole school (all 157 students and about 21 teachers). After morning announcements the teacher’s room emptied quickly. I had no idea where people went, but a lot of them are homeroom teachers, so my guess is they went to homeroom. I sat anxiously at my desk until finally at 8:40 Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) showed me into the hall where the opening ceremony was. All the students and other teachers were already in place. Kyoto-sensei showed me where to stand, up at the front between her and Kocho-sensei (principal). I was told to wear a suit for the ceremony, but truthfully only me, the principal, and the vice principal were wearing jackets! Everyone else was in black and white (or neutral), but not necessarily collared button up shirts.

First, Kocho-sensei introduced me and sort of discussed how I was taking my predecessor’s place. Then it was my turn. I gave a pretty short speech, in Japanese:

Good morning! Nice to meet you.
My name is Anje Merkies. I am 24 years old. I come from Ontario, Canada.
Six years ago I was an exchange student in Osaka.
My hobbies are baking and photography.
From now on, let’s have fun together!
Please take care of me.

After that there was a lot of bowing and another speech from Kocho-sensei, which included a lecture on saying greetings loudly. And then more bowing.

Once the ceremony was over, the students went back to their classes for tests, and I was left mostly alone in the teacher’s room for the morning. At 12:30 it was lunch time. As the teacher across from me, N, put it, kyuushoku (school lunch) is scary! I was pretty confused about what to do; all the teachers had disappeared again and I didn’t even know where to get lunch, let alone eat it. So I waited it out, took a bathroom break, and when I came back Kyoto-sensei was sitting eating and told me I could eat with her and to get a lunch tray from the kitchen. We were also joined by one of the office ladies, which was nice because Kyoto-sensei ate her lunch in record speed and left the two of us alone before the OL had even sat down properly. Lunch today was bread, mikan (tangerine), milk, some sort of vinegary seaweed/cabbage salad, pumpkin with spaghetti sauce and cheese, and some sort of spaghetti seaweed thing. I managed to drink most of the milk, eat the mikan, half the bread, half the salad, and all of the pumpkin. I didn’t even try the spaghetti, mostly because I ran out of time, but to be honest I was terrified of the thing the whole time and was rather relieved. I wrapped my bread up for later though, because it was yummy.

After lunch, the OL showed me how to clean my tray and put away the dirty dishes. After lunch was a short break period, so all the teachers came back to the room. At this time a saleslady also came around, selling yakult and other yogurt drinks.

Lunch ended at 1:30, after which were more tests for the poor students. I ran out of things to do and started typing this blog. I spent the rest of the afternoon researching games and activities. At 3:40pm I had just started stuffing my face with a cookie when J-sensei came and asked if I was coming to the assembly! I didn't even know there was another one. This one seemed to be about sports awards, the upcoming sports day, and some kind of lecture about the school entrance area. Afterwards, I returned to my desk, but all the other teachers were elsewhere, much to the surprise of about 6 students who came in looking for someone and were met with only myself.

A little later, J-sensei brought a student to me, I guess she is a first year doing the speech contest in September. I had to pick a speech for her, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was instructed to pick something easy, so I chose some story about a red demon who wanted to be friends with children. 

I was hoping the rain would let up, but it didn't stop, so I decided to go home a little while after. As I left, three girls waved and shouted goodbye from an upstairs classroom. 

Warabekan

Back during Tottori Orientation, I had arranged with my PA to meet today for a playdate. So Yana, Justin, and I took the train in to Tottori city and then took the bus to Warabekan, the Tottori toy museum. We met her and her two kids, M and H, in front of the museum. We wanted to get together because M is the same age as Yana and although she speaks English and Japanese (my PA is married to a Japanese man), she doesn't get the chance to really play with English-speaking kids.

It was Y250 for me and Justin, which is discounted from the normal price because we're foreigners, and Yana was free!

It was a great day out, especially for Yana, who has probably been a bit lonely lately. A guy from my BOE came over with his 4 year old daughter while he was setting up our TV yesterday, but both kids seemed a little shy and confused about not understanding each other.

Anyway, there was a special exhibit on at Warabekan, which was basically a room full of toys. There were things like dolls and trains, but also some fun Japanese games too. It wasn't too busy either, which was great. They also have this cool thing at the front door which is a toy hospital kind of thing. Basically you can bring in any broken toys and have them fixed for free by the toy doctors!

The kids playing fishing in the front area; behind are the toy doctors.

After playing for an hour or two we decided to eat lunch. Unfortunately it was pouring rain outside, so we had to eat inside. We also ended up cancelling the second part of our playdate due to the rain, which was a visit to Kodomo no Kuni. Kodomo no kuni (lit. "children's country") is a park for kids, and only during summer vacation they have a splash pad and petting zoo open and today was the last day! :( We will definitely have to go next summer, because it looks so fun for kids and you can hold baby goats and hamsters and stuff!

Home Internet Has Arrived!

Last night I decided to do an experiment and bake a cake in my rice cooker! I chose a recipe for carrot cake. I bought all the ingredients, with some help from the grocery store staff. But once I got home I realized I didn't have a grater for the carrots! Undeterred, I decided to try boiling the carrots and mashing them instead. It managed to work alright, even though it took forever and even though I had to use a rice scoop instead of a masher. I followed the recipe exactly, but once it was all mixed together it looked a bit wet, so I added a little more flour. I didn't want to doubt it, though, so I poured the batter into my rice cooker, pressed cook, and hoped for the best.

To my surprise, after two cook cycles, I had a cake! It was so light and spongey...and promptly fell and became a moist, dense cake. It was tasty, though! It actually tasted more of orange (from the zest) than carrot. My confidence has been bolstered by this attempt, so next maybe I'll try a chocolate cake! Flour and sugar and pretty expensive here, though. It was like $4 just for 2 cups of icing sugar!

Today I had my second day of work, at the JHS again. I walked in the rain this morning, passing several groups of students on the way. There was another omiyage treat on my desk this morning. I spent the morning chatting with my JTEs and working on my power point some more. I get along with them pretty well, and I'm so thankful for that! I suppose I've yet to see how it goes in the classroom, though. One of my JTEs, M-san, is the same age as me, so that's great!

I was told I could go home around 9 or 10am again. One of the office ladies brought me a slice of baumkuchen, which is really popular here! It is super delicious, but also expensive. Around lunchtime I decided to go home, since internet construction was today and Justin felt uneasy without me home. It had also stopped raining, so I figured I should take my chance.

The internet construction was long. They had to hook up the fibre, run the cable all around the ceilings and walls, and hook up a phone line. Our phone is awesome - it is touch screen, has a webcam/mic, and has free calling to anywhere in Chizu! We don't know our number though...Once the construction was done, a man from the BOE helped us set up the internet itself, which took forever because there was a set-up CD which refused to work on Justin's computer because it wasn't Japanese (mine doesn't have a drive). So he had to go and get his computer and bring it to our apartment. But he got it done! And set up wireless too! It was so great. We are supposed to have another internet appointment at our apartment on Monday, but I'm not sure why, since everything is set up already.

I also got my health card and pension book and finally paid the deposit on the apartment. Still waiting on the health cards for Justin and Yana. I also haven't signed my contract yet!

My First Day at Chizu JHS

Today was finally my first day of school! I go to JHS on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and ES on Tuesday and Thursday, so it was JHS today. The JHS is actually my base school; my employer. 

I met N-san at the town office around 8:15am and we walked to school together, which took about 20 minutes. It was sooo hot! The sun was out with no clouds and shining directly it is very strong. So of course I arrived looking disheveled and dripping with sweat. Somehow with all the walking my skirt also managed to turn around so I was wearing it backwards. Great start.

One of my JTE’s, J-san met us in the hallway and brought us to the meeting room. The principal was there to greet us as well, and then N-san left. J-san explained to me the schedule for the day, and then we went with the principal to the staff room. The principal introduced me in Japanese first and then I introduced myself in mangled Japanese. 

After that, J-san showed me my desk, the locker beside my desk, my shoe locker at the entrance, and my other two lockers in the change room! Then she brought me back to the staff room, and all the teachers promptly left for a meeting. I wasn’t completely alone though, there are 3 office ladies who work in the school. Their job is to do things like cleaning, serving tea, answering phones, etc. Two of them chatted with me for a bit. It was a bit of a challenge, but I think we managed to do alright somehow. 

My desk at JHS.

I spent a while going through all the things in my desk. There were also 2 omiyage left on top of my desk, gifts of food from other teachers who had traveled recently (which was so thoughtful!). I later got a third omiyage from my other JTE as well. One of the coolest things in my desk was a collection of cards from all the past ALTs at the school. 

Omiyage on my desk

After a while I decided to go wander around the school. It is a completely new building, and actually is still in the process of being finished. So its super gorgeous and on top of that it is made almost entirely from local cedar and the architecture is based off of traditional Japanese design. I had just started wandering when one of the OLs (office ladies) came out to accompany me, which was nice, because she introduced me to a few students and told me what each room was. We also peeked into the Japanese style room (for tea ceremony, etc.), which had just been finished, because she hadn’t seen it yet either! 

The hallway just outside the staff room.

JHS Courtyard

We went back to the staff room, and it was around noon by this point, so all the teachers came back from their meeting for lunch. I didn’t bring one (derp, plus they had told me I could go home right after my introduction), so my other JTE drove us to Ikari, a grocery store near the train station, and we bought lunch. I got yakisoba. My two JTEs, the vice principal, and I all ate lunch together in the kitchen/staff lunch room place. 

After lunch the teachers all had another meeting at 1pm, but I had gotten the password for my computer, so I was able to use it to make a powerpoint presentation for my self introduction classes. The computer is all in Japanese and unable to be changed, so that was a challenge. I managed to waste enough time that the teachers finished their second meeting around 3pm or so. They were pretty surprised to see me still there and repeatedly told me I could go home, but I wanted to show my work ethic by staying until my contracted time and also it was nice in there because of air conditioning and internet access, if I’m being honest. 

We spent a while trying to figure out if we could change the language settings on my laptop, and by that time it was after 4pm, and J-san was leaving, so she told me to leave as well. I figured I may as well, so I left around 4:30pm and walked home (about 25 minutes). 

Overall, it was a nice and easy first day, which I appreciated. Everyone seems really friendly as well; two or three people have invited me to their houses, which is so kind but I have no idea who they are or where they live. 

On my walk home.