There are many days when I feel my job is very tiring, but I still enjoy teaching every day. Sometimes I will have an insanely difficult class where none of the kids listen and they just scream and fight and behave very badly. Then, I have the total opposite, where the kids love English and will work their hardest to listen and understand every word I say.
The most rewarding though is when I know I can make an impact on a child.
Today I had a class with a bunch of 2nd graders in elementary school. These are usually very fun because we can play simple games and just have as much fun with English as we can. At the beginning of this one class, I was with my supervisor and she asked (in Japanese) "Ok so last week you learned 10 animals. Was it difficult?" and this one girl yelled out "It was too difficult! I hate English!"
That was when I turned to her, made a big sad face and said in English "Awwww! I am sad!!" then in Japanese "Do your best!!" Then all the kids laughed because I spoke in Japanese. I find that with the much younger kids, it is best to let them know I understand Japanese so I don't seem as scary and different. I become closer to them and they actually want to get to know me.
Afterward we played a game, where the kids come up and say with the class what animal they like. I could tell that the little girl who hated English wanted to participate so I had her come up with a friend, I knew she wouldn't come alone so it was a good way to get more kids involved.
Once we played a few games, and everyone was having fun, the girl who hated English came up to me and said "My name is ___!" and then she said in Japanese "I like English now!" I almost wanted to cry from happiness. She asked me many questions in Japanese and so I talked with her and her friends and I think it made her really happy. After class she folded me an acorn in origami and then during her recess she would come up to the teacher's window and wave at me and then run away.
What an adorable kid! It makes me so happy to think that I completely changed a child's view on English, that I made her enjoy the class and want to participate, I can only hope and wish that she will keep that love forever.
I think this really shows me what kind of impact being a teacher really has on a child, how you can be such a large influence on their opinions and ideas just by saying a few kind words. This is one reason why I truly love my job, I can meet many students of all ages, spend time with them and let them actually enjoy English. Hopefully, if I can just make a couple kids really love English then I think I have done my job right.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Finally some Fall
(Side note: Hopefully I will post some pictures later. I still need to put them onto my computer.)
So it's been a long time! I know it has, I get so distracted with so many things, I forget that I have a blog to update! I think I wanted to have this blog full of pictures of everything I am doing, so I didn't want to update until those were posted. Probably a bad idea.
Anyways, the leaves are finally changing! The weather has cooled down a lot, but it's still not too cold. This week is in the 50s during the day, at night it goes down to about the 40s or 30s. It has not even gone below freezing yet. But I keep warm with good ol fashioned Japanese baths and my nice heater that I bought on amazon.co.jp. I love it because it is a oil heater, which just radiates heat instead of blowing hot air. The oil stays in, you never even see it, so it's probably one of the safest heaters you can buy, and the warmest.
The one thing that is so crazy is that even with the leaves chaning, you can still see flowers everywhere! There are roses and sunflowers and so many others. It feels so odd to think that the flowers haven't died yet from the cold. I am so used to Michigan where it will be super cold mid-October and you dont see flowers again until April or May.
With the cold I've been trying out a whole bunch of new recipies. I have attempted to make tomato soup, it turned out great! I am really happy with it, and I have some frozen leftovers still. Good for those days when I dont want to cook! I also tried to make Chicken lemon rice soup. That turned out okay... it tasted pretty good, sort of strong though, and the egg in the soup didn't cook right, but it was still yummy!! I will have to give it a try again. Nothing is better than a hot bowl of soup on a cold day.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a trip to Mt. Kouya (or also known as Kouyasan) it was a lovely adventure. A friend and I stayed the night in a temple, where we got to eat vegitarian monk food, and meditate with the monks. We also got a couple of tours of the famous places on the mountian, like Okunoin, which is a famous grave yard that has people from all over Japanese history either buried there or have a memorial there. Also we saw the famous temple and lecture hall that the mountian is known for. It was a great trip, I loved going and I want to go again when it is a bit warmer.
This past weekend I showed a friend around all of Nara park. We saw Todaiji temple, Nigatsu dou hall, and then we also got to see Kofukuji temple. We were really lucky because at Kofukuji temple they were having a special exibition of the 5 story pagoda, the east lecture hall, and the octagon hall, which only happens for one month once a year. We got there on the last day, and we were able to see some really beautiful things, but no pictures were allowed for anything inside. It was a great trip, I got to see a lot of Nara that I don't normally take the time to see.
Well, that is what I have been up to lately. I will be having a couple of Thanksgiving parties with my friends, that way we can cure our homesickness a bit during the holidays by eating tons of yummy food and being with friends. It will be a lot of fun, but I will sure miss not being able to be at home!
So it's been a long time! I know it has, I get so distracted with so many things, I forget that I have a blog to update! I think I wanted to have this blog full of pictures of everything I am doing, so I didn't want to update until those were posted. Probably a bad idea.
Anyways, the leaves are finally changing! The weather has cooled down a lot, but it's still not too cold. This week is in the 50s during the day, at night it goes down to about the 40s or 30s. It has not even gone below freezing yet. But I keep warm with good ol fashioned Japanese baths and my nice heater that I bought on amazon.co.jp. I love it because it is a oil heater, which just radiates heat instead of blowing hot air. The oil stays in, you never even see it, so it's probably one of the safest heaters you can buy, and the warmest.
The one thing that is so crazy is that even with the leaves chaning, you can still see flowers everywhere! There are roses and sunflowers and so many others. It feels so odd to think that the flowers haven't died yet from the cold. I am so used to Michigan where it will be super cold mid-October and you dont see flowers again until April or May.
With the cold I've been trying out a whole bunch of new recipies. I have attempted to make tomato soup, it turned out great! I am really happy with it, and I have some frozen leftovers still. Good for those days when I dont want to cook! I also tried to make Chicken lemon rice soup. That turned out okay... it tasted pretty good, sort of strong though, and the egg in the soup didn't cook right, but it was still yummy!! I will have to give it a try again. Nothing is better than a hot bowl of soup on a cold day.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a trip to Mt. Kouya (or also known as Kouyasan) it was a lovely adventure. A friend and I stayed the night in a temple, where we got to eat vegitarian monk food, and meditate with the monks. We also got a couple of tours of the famous places on the mountian, like Okunoin, which is a famous grave yard that has people from all over Japanese history either buried there or have a memorial there. Also we saw the famous temple and lecture hall that the mountian is known for. It was a great trip, I loved going and I want to go again when it is a bit warmer.
This past weekend I showed a friend around all of Nara park. We saw Todaiji temple, Nigatsu dou hall, and then we also got to see Kofukuji temple. We were really lucky because at Kofukuji temple they were having a special exibition of the 5 story pagoda, the east lecture hall, and the octagon hall, which only happens for one month once a year. We got there on the last day, and we were able to see some really beautiful things, but no pictures were allowed for anything inside. It was a great trip, I got to see a lot of Nara that I don't normally take the time to see.
Well, that is what I have been up to lately. I will be having a couple of Thanksgiving parties with my friends, that way we can cure our homesickness a bit during the holidays by eating tons of yummy food and being with friends. It will be a lot of fun, but I will sure miss not being able to be at home!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
First post in Japan!!
So I have been here a month and now I finally have internet, which means I can finally post things online! For the past month I have been contacting my family and friends through e-mail when I was able to get to an internet cafe.
Wow so much to say and i have no clue where to start!
First off, I love it here, I love Nara, and I love my job! Classes started this past Monday, and I finally got to be in my school and get to know my students and fellow teachers. The teachers are all super nice, and a lot of them try their best to talk to me even though they don't know any English and my Japanese is very poor. Our conversations end up being very simple things like what movies do I like and such, but it really makes me feel welcome. The students are super friendly, until you get them in the classroom. Then these kids are too shy to raise their hand for anything!
This past week I've been getting used to teaching, the only thing I have been doing is giving my self introduction to all of the kids over and over again. By the end of the week I had it down perfectly, and I was able to get the kids to really interact with me and have fun in the classroom. I am really learning as I go along, and improving with time this whole teaching deal. By the end of the year I think I will have gotten so much better that to look back at this past week I will just laugh. For now, I am proud of my accomplishments. I am learning how to teach to kids, and at the same time I am learning more and more Japanese every day.
Before classes started I had time to do so many things! Of course it was all during the weekends, because I still had to go into my board of education, but there was so much to do! First I went to the Tokae in Nara Park. The Tokae is a festival where people will put many candles all around the park to celebrate the dead coming back to earth to visit the living. The candles are to lead the spirits back to the spirit world. It is almost a week long festival, starting on a wednesday and ending on Saturday. On Saturday both Nara and Kyoto celebrate the end of the festival by burning giant chinese characters, called kanji, into the mountians. I was able to see the kanji buring for the word meaning "big" while I was in Kyoto. It was an amazing experience, and breathtaking to see something like that just burning on a mountian side. I was able to take a lot of pictures, but there were only a couple that weren't blurry and they really dont give the scenery justice.
Also last week I was able to go to another festival in Nara called Basara Matsuri. This was a fes
tival dedicated to dancing, it is actually very recent, this was only the 10th year in people actually. Even though it is a newer festival, there were a lot of amazing groups that preformed and it really was a great thing to watch. There were so many groups with different colors of costumes and styles of music and dancing. sometimes it was hard to believe I was in Japan while other times I felt like I was in ancent Japan! There would be a group dressed in traditional kimono dancing to an elegant song followed by a hip-hop group and then followed by a belly dancing group! The range of music and dancing styles is really what made the expeience worth going to. Plus I was able to watch fellow JETs who preformed for a group as well. I didnt do it because I really just wanted to watch the whole experience and plus I wanted to make sure I could relax if I wanted to before classes started. That being said, I think next year I will join the JETs and dance around the streets with everyone!
Needless to say, my first month here has been great! Next weekend I am finally thinking of going to Fushimi Inari, the fox shrine. Last time I went to Japan I really wanted to go, but we never had the time because it is an all dat trip. So i promised myself that it would be one of the first things I did when I came here. now that the weather is cooling down, I figure this is the perfect opprotunity to go and climb that giant hill, take many lovely picture, and eat lots of inarizushi (sushi wrapped in fried tofu, oh so yummy!)
Wow so much to say and i have no clue where to start!
First off, I love it here, I love Nara, and I love my job! Classes started this past Monday, and I finally got to be in my school and get to know my students and fellow teachers. The teachers are all super nice, and a lot of them try their best to talk to me even though they don't know any English and my Japanese is very poor. Our conversations end up being very simple things like what movies do I like and such, but it really makes me feel welcome. The students are super friendly, until you get them in the classroom. Then these kids are too shy to raise their hand for anything!
This past week I've been getting used to teaching, the only thing I have been doing is giving my self introduction to all of the kids over and over again. By the end of the week I had it down perfectly, and I was able to get the kids to really interact with me and have fun in the classroom. I am really learning as I go along, and improving with time this whole teaching deal. By the end of the year I think I will have gotten so much better that to look back at this past week I will just laugh. For now, I am proud of my accomplishments. I am learning how to teach to kids, and at the same time I am learning more and more Japanese every day.
Before classes started I had time to do so many things! Of course it was all during the weekends, because I still had to go into my board of education, but there was so much to do! First I went to the Tokae in Nara Park. The Tokae is a festival where people will put many candles all around the park to celebrate the dead coming back to earth to visit the living. The candles are to lead the spirits back to the spirit world. It is almost a week long festival, starting on a wednesday and ending on Saturday. On Saturday both Nara and Kyoto celebrate the end of the festival by burning giant chinese characters, called kanji, into the mountians. I was able to see the kanji buring for the word meaning "big" while I was in Kyoto. It was an amazing experience, and breathtaking to see something like that just burning on a mountian side. I was able to take a lot of pictures, but there were only a couple that weren't blurry and they really dont give the scenery justice.
Also last week I was able to go to another festival in Nara called Basara Matsuri. This was a fes
tival dedicated to dancing, it is actually very recent, this was only the 10th year in people actually. Even though it is a newer festival, there were a lot of amazing groups that preformed and it really was a great thing to watch. There were so many groups with different colors of costumes and styles of music and dancing. sometimes it was hard to believe I was in Japan while other times I felt like I was in ancent Japan! There would be a group dressed in traditional kimono dancing to an elegant song followed by a hip-hop group and then followed by a belly dancing group! The range of music and dancing styles is really what made the expeience worth going to. Plus I was able to watch fellow JETs who preformed for a group as well. I didnt do it because I really just wanted to watch the whole experience and plus I wanted to make sure I could relax if I wanted to before classes started. That being said, I think next year I will join the JETs and dance around the streets with everyone!Needless to say, my first month here has been great! Next weekend I am finally thinking of going to Fushimi Inari, the fox shrine. Last time I went to Japan I really wanted to go, but we never had the time because it is an all dat trip. So i promised myself that it would be one of the first things I did when I came here. now that the weather is cooling down, I figure this is the perfect opprotunity to go and climb that giant hill, take many lovely picture, and eat lots of inarizushi (sushi wrapped in fried tofu, oh so yummy!)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Welcome! Off to Japan in two days!
Hello everybody!
My name is Heidi, this Saturday I will be leaving for Japan and working as an Assistant Language Teacher for the JET Program. For the next year I will be working at various junior high schools and elementary schools in Nara, Japan.
In this blog I will be recording my travels, posting many many pictures, and just talking about my thoughts and feelings about the whole experience. Please feel free to leave me comments, or send me an e-mail at sleepyrivet@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Right now I am in the process of packing. After several tries of packing and re-packing, I have concluded that there is no way I can fit my whole life in only two bags of 50 pounds each. Being I can't buy clothes in Japan (I am a much larger size than the average Japanese person) I have the extra worry that if I forget something I will have to have it mailed from home. As much as I hate to do it, I will be packing one of my bags extra heavy and then just pay for the costs that they are going to charge me.
Packing aside, I am extremely excited to be leaving so soon! The excitement has been driving me so crazy that I can no longer sleep at night. My mind keeps on thinking of things I need to do and get done. It wont be until I am finally on the plane, that I can finally allow myself to relax. Of course I will probably be too excited on the plane to relax.
With all the excitement, it also makes me slightly sad that I am leaving home. It will be realy difficult to be away from friends, family and my boyfriend. I did get a vonage phone, so I will be taking the box with me and have an American number that people can call me and I can talk to them without having to pay exorbitant amounts of money. (If you want my number, just send me an e-mail) Getting letters in the mail helps too! Feel free to send me letters to Japan, and I will write you back on awesome Japanese stationary!
Here is my address
Heidi Hawkins
Nara shi, Nara ken
Akishinosatsuki Cho 10-10
Sanwa Mansion #216
631-0812 Japan
Tel- 0742-33-3116 (This is a Japanese telephone number... so I wouldn't recommend calling if your not in Japan)
Now, I hope that is right... it is the address my predecessor gave me. She showed me pictures of the apartment, and it is adorable and so very Japanese! Once I get there I will have to post my own pictures.
Now I just need to sit and wait until Saturday! I will be flying in Tokyo, where I will be staying for 3 days. During that time there is a giant orientation for JET Program participants where we learn how to do our job, then we are shipped off to our respective cities and start our jobs! I can't wait, everything seems to be going by so quckly yet slow at the same time.
Wish me luck!
My name is Heidi, this Saturday I will be leaving for Japan and working as an Assistant Language Teacher for the JET Program. For the next year I will be working at various junior high schools and elementary schools in Nara, Japan.
In this blog I will be recording my travels, posting many many pictures, and just talking about my thoughts and feelings about the whole experience. Please feel free to leave me comments, or send me an e-mail at sleepyrivet@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Right now I am in the process of packing. After several tries of packing and re-packing, I have concluded that there is no way I can fit my whole life in only two bags of 50 pounds each. Being I can't buy clothes in Japan (I am a much larger size than the average Japanese person) I have the extra worry that if I forget something I will have to have it mailed from home. As much as I hate to do it, I will be packing one of my bags extra heavy and then just pay for the costs that they are going to charge me.
Packing aside, I am extremely excited to be leaving so soon! The excitement has been driving me so crazy that I can no longer sleep at night. My mind keeps on thinking of things I need to do and get done. It wont be until I am finally on the plane, that I can finally allow myself to relax. Of course I will probably be too excited on the plane to relax.
With all the excitement, it also makes me slightly sad that I am leaving home. It will be realy difficult to be away from friends, family and my boyfriend. I did get a vonage phone, so I will be taking the box with me and have an American number that people can call me and I can talk to them without having to pay exorbitant amounts of money. (If you want my number, just send me an e-mail) Getting letters in the mail helps too! Feel free to send me letters to Japan, and I will write you back on awesome Japanese stationary!
Here is my address
Heidi Hawkins
Nara shi, Nara ken
Akishinosatsuki Cho 10-10
Sanwa Mansion #216
631-0812 Japan
Tel- 0742-33-3116 (This is a Japanese telephone number... so I wouldn't recommend calling if your not in Japan)
Now, I hope that is right... it is the address my predecessor gave me. She showed me pictures of the apartment, and it is adorable and so very Japanese! Once I get there I will have to post my own pictures.
Now I just need to sit and wait until Saturday! I will be flying in Tokyo, where I will be staying for 3 days. During that time there is a giant orientation for JET Program participants where we learn how to do our job, then we are shipped off to our respective cities and start our jobs! I can't wait, everything seems to be going by so quckly yet slow at the same time.
Wish me luck!
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