The Return

Well, I’m back from my vacation to the states. Seems like things are starting to go as usual and routine is starting to kick in. Let me update on what’s been happening since my return.

My first week had me waking up at six am trying to work through jet lag. I have to admit it was pretty nice to get up and take your time getting ready for work. I was able to eat breakfast and think about what to bring for the day. Work is particularly slow because all the students are on vacation and teacher workload is at its lowest. Considering the light workload I had to begin with (at least at my base school), I had absolutely nothing to do. So I spent it planning my seminar that was going to happen that Thursday of that week.

Speaking of which, the seminar itself made me worry my entire time on vacation. The day after I arrived I worked on it. Having little contact with the BOE during the month, I just planned the event based on the initial meeting with them. The day before the seminar, we finally had a meeting on what WILL happen. I met up with Nathaniel at the BOE around 9am. We discussed about the 2 workshops that we’ll do and how we plan to do icebreakers. It wasn’t as bad as I envisioned it to be. After about an hour, Nathaniel and I talked about the seminar, briefly. We ended up talking about what’s wrong with the system, what we plan to do after JET, and random things about our lives up to this point. It was a good talk, considering we don’t talk much these days.

The seminar was the first of its kind on this island. Starting this year, all 5th and 6th graders are required to take English. We were asked to show an example lesson and discuss our point of view on how we think English should be taught. It was interesting because even though we don’t get to do much in school, we do get to interact with the children differently than the teachers. It’s this difference they wanted us to explain. I tried my best to provide my insight on what I’ve been observing this past year, and I’ve learned a few things to make them understand.
I’ve learned about student’s behaviors and how many variables have to be right in order for a class to be productive. I’ve learned about teaching a concept in my many ways so that students can understand. I’ve learned that for them to learn English, they need more exposure, a lot more. These were just some of the ideas I shared with the teachers at the seminar. Most of it was in workshop where I demonstrated many games for them to use that I found successful in my classes. Afterwards, I shared my resources with them and let them go to their respective schools to try them out.

The weekend following the seminar was very relaxing. On Sunday I went to my second high school sports festival. Joe came back from his trip to Australia that weekend, so we ended up going together to watch Andrea and her students run around. It was great seeing all my previous students coming up and saying hi. I saw a bunch of my previous Uonome students, as well as Melissa. I even saw Vicky there. It was also the first time I’ve seen the sun since my return. After watching the relay, Joe and I took off to eat Ramen. There, he talked about his crazy adventure in Australia. We ended up back at Andrea’s place watching the entire season of Twin Peaks…

Which leads me to Monday, the official start of the 2nd semester. We had the opening ceremony which usually is a boring event, but something interesting came up. Towards the awards for summer stuff, one of my 1st years whom I haven’t seen all year, was dragged in by her mom and two teachers. I don’t know what was wrong, but she didn’t want to be there. She was carried in and stood around in the back. She was so great in elementary school, I wonder what happened here that made her act that way. I’ve heard things since April that she doesn’t want to be here or rumors that she has no friends. She went to Tokyo for something, which could’ve been a reason for her not wanting to be here. Sometimes I feel like she does about this place. Only in Japan, right? It’s good to be back.