teaching english beyond the classroom

英会話

えいかいわ

eikaiwa

English conversation class

し

shi

hiragana character, part of the hiragana syllabary

This past Tuesday marked an important moment in my work as a JET here in Japan. Along with a fellow ALT, I started an 英会話 in my hometown. While most ALTs will find this rather mundane (many JETs host classes of their own), it's exciting for me because to my knowledge, my town has never had one before. Having something I can point at and say "I started that!" is nice, as opposed to taking over responsibility for a project somebody else had a vision for. This is also one of the rare opportunities I get to meet new people and make friends in my community; unlike Tanzania, people aren't too keen about random visitors coming to their home for no particular reason but to see what they're up to. Unfortunately, I've had to restrain myself from sharing that particular part of Tanzanian culture with my town, as I've told many of my Japanese friends.

blog series: david goes everywhere!

Just to make everyone aware, I have been writing short essays for my school's English blog. If you want to hear about some of the larger events and extracurricular things I do at the school, keep an eye on the "Chikusa High School" blog link in the right-hand sidebar under "Blogs you should follow." I will still post here on my personal blog about school, but it will be less formal in manner and more personal with regards to the topic. For the big stuff, refer to the school's website. Also don't be afraid to check out the Japanese entries that show up; most of them have a host of pictures of the activities going on here!

how to run an english class by yourself

If you had asked me how to do this yesterday, I would've had no idea. If you ask me now, I still wouldn't have any idea. The only difference is that I was thrust into this position during 1st period this morning. My JTE had to deal with some school administrative issues, so he asked me to cover his 3rd Year (seniors) Writing class. My only direction was to perhaps try something involving listening. Hmm...