Korea--Day 3

Teaching Teachers

Today us Shimonoseki BOE ALTs participated in a workshop for elementary school teachers. After a morning of presentations all in Japanese which none of us understood, we each led a 15 minute English activity. In all honestly, I was quite impressed by us. We presented a variety of topics and the teachers seemed to enjoy and appreciate our efforts. I particularly enjoyed watching my fellow friends/colleagues in action. Well done.

Here are some action shots of each of us:
Laura teaching fruits.

Becky leading the macarena.

Teachers dancing.

Jonathan's game on animals.

Tom leading an activity on ABCs.

Stirling leading a game of Teacher Says.



I am leading a game on directions. My favorite is this final photo with my hair flying. Thanks Laura for taking the photos!

The past two weeks

Nothing particularly exciting has been happening lately. I've been keeping busy with school and responsibilities. A few friends and family members have birthdays coming up, so some letter writing and getting together of packages to mail have been happening. The weather has been unpredictable of late since it is the rainy season. Sometimes I play chase with the rain clouds and attempt to ride my bike really fast to the ATM or grocery store before it starts raining. So far I am winning the game. Last weekend I bought a new skirt in Kokura. I got a blow of disappointment as Brock has backed out of our original Christmas travel plans. I am trying to stay positive. All this means I may be headed back home for Christmas again, which might be ok.

I think it's funny how ridiculous I look in many of my teaching photos, especially with my summer hair puff. Ah, linin is my best friend. These next few photos are of two town elementary schools.

A really cute brother and sister. They both take English class at Kumon.


These 4th graders enjoy teaching me Japanese during lunch break.

We are playing "What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf." It was a kid in this class that randomly said after lunch, "This is penis," as he pointed to his own. The poor teacher I was talking to was so embarrassed and made a bigger deal of it than necessary, saying, "No, no say 'penis.' " Made me chuckle.




Kikugawa had a ホタル festival last week. Where you are from, do you call them fire flies or do you call them lightning bugs? In the great state of Indiana, we call them lightning bugs. Just curious.

Fish on a stick. おいしいそ！ I saw one of my students eat the entire thing, head and all. I wasn't that brave.

Japanese Farming Experience

As you can see on a few other's blogs, we went rice planting last weekend here in town. A lovely woman named Emi from Becky's adult conversation class invited Becky and friends to Kikugawa to plant rice. Emi and her husband were incredibly kind and served us a wonderful display of food. They said we could come back in October to harvest our little patch. But perhaps it will only be Laura and me who get to harvest.



Following lunch we went to an old house in Utano area of Kikugawa. The art teacher (Mr Hiyashima) from Kikugawa Jr. High had an art display of pencil drawings. We drank soba tea and wrote our names in katakana in the guest book. The man running the place spoke fluent English, which was a lovely surprise. Mr. Hiyashima thanked me on Tuesday for going to his exhibit. I thought my JTEs had told him I went there, but no; he had read my name in the guest book! Our writing was legible afterall!!

Let's Volleyball!

This weekend began with a Friday night office enkai. Office parties are one of my favorite parts of being in Japan. The people I work with are really cool and know how to have a good time. My Japanese listening comprehension and their loosening up enough to try more English has really helped all of us. Somehow or other during the night I got drafted to participate in a town, school-wide volleyball tournament on Saturday. Each school in town had a team formed of parents and teachers. My BOE formed a team, as well. I told them I was terrible at volleyball but would come and be a fan/photographer. I should have known they would never go for the "fan" idea. And after their first game I was forced to play. Luckily I was put in the back right corner so I only hit the all a few times. But I did have several nice serves (after a couple terrible practice ones). It was great socializing with fellow teachers from schools outside of the classroom. My favorite moment was when about 15 elementary school students came over to our BOE game and started cheering,"Ganbatte, Angie sensei!" Their support definintely helped because after their cheering I had my best serve. Here is a team shot. At least my blue shirt made me look like part of the group. Despite our efforts we came in 6th out of 6 teams. After the game we had a group enkai with members from all the teams at the town hotel/onsen. I ended up getting randomly seated next to one of my favorite teachers (who speaks very good English), one of my elementary school principals, and three students' parents (one of those parents was Mr. Y's brother! See "Please Wear a Ring" post to refresh your memory). All of these parents had somewhat functional English, so we had a fun time speaking half Japanese and half English. I was told by parents and teachers alike that their kids like me and are comfortable around me. Mr. Y's brother even thanked me because his son got a 90% on his first English exam. Apparently I had something to do with the boy's high marks, although that is highly unlikely. Sometimes I am really unsure what my co-workers and students think of me and my performance and existance in the town. So it is good to know that people think I am doing a good job. Two awards were given to each team, one "Best player" award and another "Hustler" award. You can see which one I received. I was quite embarrassed but it was a really nice gesture. I have never been invited to school enkais, so this was really fun socializing with teachers and parents alike. Maybe by next year's tournament my volleyball skills will have improved.

A behind the scenes look

Tuesday after work, Mr. Fujinaga took me to a local Buddhist temple. A long-time friend of his is a priest. The man and his wife run the temple. Unfortunately I did not catch their names, but they were very very kind in allowing me to browse around and go into some usually closed-off areas of the temple.







The ceiling is painted to resemble heaven. The crosses are "borrowed" from Christianity. I was also told that similar to the Christian concept of Sunday School for children, there is a Buddhist School held one Sunday a month for children. They showed me a slide show of a Buddhist School that several of my elementary students attended.

Kobe

Kobe: Most of the workshops I chose were quite good, and I gained lots of new ideas for elementary school and kindergarten. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you fellow soon-to-be second year ALTs.