Sutorenjaa In Japan

English Camp= Good Times, "Roosa"!

This weekend's update (part I):

Friday- 2/24
Went to school for a half day & just mucked about as there was no work to be done (goodness, do I love exam period!). Got home & had lunch and then went to the gym after narrowly escaping the NHK man! Side story- NHK is a 'network' I guess, in Japan. It owns about 4 channels. I had heard that they send people around to collect money for NHK for viewing the channels but that it may not be mandatory? I'm still unclear. Anyway, I was running out the door to the gym and the guy was at my neighbors door. He asked what time to come back & I stupidly said an hour. But I made sure to take my time getting to and from the gym, as well as taking a detour on the way back. Strategy: avoid the NHK man at all costs!!! This aslo meant lights out and not a sound when I got back home. STEALTH!

Saturday- 2/25 (9am-5pm)
Rise and shine for the Takefu Higashi Winter English Camp! Woo hoo!!! Blah. I had volunteered for this awhile ago because 1) It paid 5000en for the day (every little bit helps) 2) my friend was organizing it, and other friends were going (yay! following the crowd!) and 3) I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about for this school. Apparently, this high school has an international program in addition to a regular English program and it is one of the best in the country. So, they get lots of funding from the government and the kids that are accepted into the program must have very good English skills. It's the only school in Fukui to have 2 ALTs (and they are getting a 3rd next year). Of course I had to check it out.

The only reason I said, "blah" above was that I had to wake up at 8am to be at the camp by 9am. Yay. Everyone knows how fond I am of waking up early. Anyway, it was very interesting. Each ALT had a group of 4 students to work with. I had 3 girls and a boy. First the students read an English news paper article, summarized the events and did a mini news broadcast. Then they shared other articles the had found. After that, the groups split up into pairs and there was 2 rounds of proper debating. The ALTs acted as moderators and 2 pairs of students debated the issue of Article 9 in the Japanese constitution (If you haden't heard, Prime Minister Koizumi wants to remove this article from the constitution. The removal would allow Japan to have a standing army again). So, we had to moderate and judge which groups had the better arguements. The last activity was a presentation of candidates. Students had to pretend they were a candidate and they had to present themselves and their platform. My group's platform was peace and truth. Yay. So, basically they said that the world could be ruled through peace and truth... whatever that means. These were pre-assigned platforms so, some of them were kind of weird. Eg. the Earth group (that seemed to pronounce it "ass"- I had to keep a straight face in the back). These presentations were incredibly long and BO-RING. Sorry kids. It might have been better to do something a little more interactive. The kids worked hard on the presentations though, so it was very interesting to watch them at work. Some groups were very lively & others were a bit more quiet. One of my friends had a group of girls that seemed to cry after every activity! I guess the pressure & their desire to achieve was so great that they cried when they thought they didn't do well. It was a little nuts. He had no idea what to do.... a boy and a 4 japanese high school girls crying. Oh the hilarity of the situation.

It was a good day. The kids were great & the legends are true. Their English was fantastic. Worlds ahead of my kids. It was very nice to talk with the kids and actually have a nice conversation with them. I liked getting to know them a bit better. It was a welcome change of pace. On the other hand, I was crazy tired so I was struggling to stay awake the entire day. I did have some coffee, which I thought would help me wake up a bit. Instead, it wired me and I was a little hyper towards the end of the day. BAD COFFEE- never again will I be fooled by your false promises of wakefulness!

The crowning glory of my teaching skills was that I taught my kids the 2-fingers to the forehead "looser!" AND I got them to constantly use it on my friend, Chris. This is a sort of running joke... I meet a Japanese person around Chris and I teach them to call him a looser. Works every time and is hi-LAR-ious every time. Yes. I am a good sensei.
Chris, the "roosa"-------------------------->

posted by KidBach @ 9:52 AM