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.

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...

the joys and headaches of teaching in a foreign land

先生

せんせい

sensei

teacher

Please read Learning How to Teach, a wonderful blog entry by my friend Adam, who is currently teaching up in Fukushima Prefecture. We went to college together at the University of Maryland and were a part of the same Christian fellowship on campus, and now we've both ended up in Japan at the same time, rather coincidentally. Although he works for a different organization, and teaches at a junior high school rather than a senior high school, our jobs are just about identical. In his post, he talks about some of the differences between Japanese and American culture, and also has some great insights on what Japanese students are like. I'm finding lots of this to be true in my own situation. I'm writing this as a sort of reflection on his entry.