One year on
Just a short post.
A lot has happened since the last post. The Japanese school year ends this month, Friday March 25 to be precise, so my kids and I have been wrapping up the year in our own way.
My youngest daughter finished her first year at kindy (幼稚園 youchien), which is quite different in frequency and style to an Australia one. Kindy is three years (年少 nenshou, 年中 nenchuu, 年長 nenchou). She goes Monday to Friday and comes back on a kindy bus. It is amazingly well organised and has an interesting payment scale. The kindy is private and expensive when you look at the fees, but depending on the city and the number of siblings, your fees are altered. So, because my youngest is the third child (and the city really wants more kids), we got all the fees back at the end of the academic year (this week). Ripper!
My other two kids finish this Friday, as do I. However, since I taught mainly 3rd year high school students this year, I basically finished the bulk of my lessons back in early February. There have been graduation ceremonies and entrance exams and... a whole plethora of events that have filled in most of the time though. After Friday, the students have roughly 2-3 weeks off before they enter their new grade. However, for teachers, we do not have any official holidays during the turnover. We will be required to go to school and... do stuff. I'm actually going to make use of my remaining personal days on my contract and take 4 days off. It is not as bad as it sounds though (going to school). Most teachers have a ton of things to do in preparation for the new year, as well as moving to our new desk/roles.
I am really excited about my plan for next year. I will be mainly teaching junior high school students (= Year 7, 8, 9 in Australia) and 1st year high school students (= Yr 10). However, I will be teaching one of my classes Science... in English! The method is called Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and has been around for some 20 years in Europe and other parts of the world, though hasn't really penetrated the rigid Japanese education system yet. There are quite a few schools that are experimenting already in Japan, but not many in my area. The lessons will not be that frequent (therefore it is termed "light") but it will be both a challenge and a refreshing break. As well as that, through the persistence of my Head of English and myself, our school is taking its first step into the edtech world. We will get a mammoth interactive touch panel screen for a specially designed room. It is only one, but that is a huge change for us. I'll be put in charge of demostrating how to use it, physically and meaningfully. Can't wait.
Other news:
- I played a traditional game with a maiko. A maiko! That is an apprentice geisha for those that were unsure. It usually costs an arm and a leg to see them play. She came all the way up here from Kyoto just for me... or to promote a Kyoto Fair at one of the local department stores or something. She danced a couple of traditional song/dances (see YouTube) and then played a game with a few volunteers in the audience. Because I stood out like a sore thumb, there were fingers pointing at me to go up and play. You can see my efforts in this YouTube clip.
- I was accepted to present at the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) - Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) Conference in June (website). It is a conference I have wanted to present at since arriving here and I look forward to the networking opportunities.
- We are going to build a house... eventually. There are many hurdles that we have had to and will have to jump before we even get close to laying the foundations. But, it is happening. More to come on that.
