Teaching English In Japan | The Japan Guy

Teaching English In Japan

Learning Kanji: My Five Kanji Teachers

May 10, 2012
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Learning Kanji: My Five Kanji Teachers

“BING, BONG, BING, BONG, BING, BONG, BING, BONG.” That grandfather clock-like tone means that cleaning time is over, and it’s time for the noon break. For the last four days my noon break has been a little different than normal. Every day after lunch & shouji I’ve been getting schooled in the ways of Japanese kanji by five, fifth grade girls. Learning kanji isn’t always easy, but hearing it from a Japanese kid’s perspective was really interesting. These five students were some of my best fourth graders last year, and the first day back, immediately after souji (cleaning time) they all came to my classroom, and were pretending like they were having an English...

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How To Play Kendama (けん玉), Part 1

April 29, 2012
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How To Play Kendama (けん玉), Part 1

Japanese bilboquet or Kendama (けん玉) is a game that’s been around for ages…in some way, shape or form, all over the world. Some people call it bilboquet, or the Bilbo Catcher, the cup and ball game, or the ring and pin game**. Since the origins of the game are unclear, I figured it’s a good time to make up a Japan Guy story as to how kendama began, so here it goes: **I’ve heard this called bilboquet and the cup and ball game, but not the ring and pin or Bilbo Catcher. Thanks Waterloo University =============================================================================== In the beginning, the earth was a place of harmony, and land of blue seas and green trees....

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Delayed Respect

April 12, 2012
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Delayed Respect

By the end of the year I had a few of girls that I just couldn’t reach. No matter what approach I took, they never seemed to like English class very much. Not every student you teach is going take a liking to your teaching style or the subject that you teach. I do think a good teacher is able to get through to most of their kids, but I think it’s nigh impossible to get every single student to like you. One of the teaching struggles I ran into while teaching at a shogakko (Japanese elementary school level) was teaching sixth graders. Oddly enough that was the same grade level where I started...

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7 Ways To Deal With Problem Students

April 8, 2012
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ProblemKids

With the new school year starting and all, I felt compelled to write an article about the best ways to deal with a child that’s misbehaving. If you’re a teacher in America you can communicate to fully, in English, to those students when they are cutting up. Albeit if they’re really bad kids, they’re probably not going to listen to you, but you can at least communicate with them. In Japan, how to control a misbehaving kid who doesn’t understand a lick of what you’re saying? Can you just punch them in the side of the head? Nah, I wouldn’t recommend doing that if you really value your job. But wait a minute, let...

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Do You Remember Your Elementary School Graduation Song?

April 3, 2012
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tomorrow

You know, one interesting similarity about American and Japanese elementary school graduations is that there is a song that the students have to sing. I must be getting old or something because I can’t remember what my 7th grade, elementary school graduation song was**. I want to say it was Michael Jackson’s “Heal The World,” but I really don’t remember. My Dad was also a teacher at one point and I do remember what his elementary school kids were singing at his school for one of his graduations. I remember because I want to say my Dad practicing the piece on his saxophone at home (remember when saxophones were cool?). That song was Tevin...

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A Japan Guy Review: My First Year Teaching As An ALT In Japan (Part 2)

March 30, 2012
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A Japan Guy Review: My First Year Teaching As An ALT In Japan (Part 2)

…read Part 1 of this article… Wait, are you supposed to start with the bad news first? Damn it! Ah well, I won’t say anything if you don’t. Let’s take a look at some of the downsides of my first year as an ALT in Japan. THE NOT SO GOOD I’ll try to say these as tactfully as possible. They are my honest opinions, but I’m still working here. Training I honestly felt that initial training wasn’t at organized or as effective as it could’ve been. I think I was okay because I AEON training was so incredibly thorough. But I would imagine that a person who was new to Japan could feel like...

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A Japan Guy Review: My First Year Teaching As An ALT In Japan (Part 1)

March 29, 2012
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A Japan Guy Review: My First Year Teaching As An ALT In Japan (Part 1)

It’s official, I have signed on for an additional year as an ALT. I will have a chance to teach many of the same great students that I had last year, and work with many of the same teachers, too. In many respects, it’s wonderful news. The first year I think was a chance to get my bearing and see what teaching/working for another company was like. So I want to give you my honest to goodness review of what it was like to work with Interac as an ALT for the very first time. I am currently working for the company, but I’m still going to give as honest a review as I...

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Japanese Elementary School Graduation Ceremony 2012

March 26, 2012
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Japanese Elementary School Graduation Ceremony 2012

March 16, 2011. Today I saw my first Japanese Shogakko graduation ceremony, or そつぎょう(sotsugyo), in Japanese. I had heard that Japan really values ceremonies, but hearing about it and seeing it first hand are two totally different things. THE CROWD It was incredibly cool to look into the crowd and see some of the mom’s dressed in traditional hakama. Dad’s in suits, grandmothers in dresses, video cameras out in full support of their children, children who have an entire future ahead of them. THE CEREMONY The ceremony began with everyone standing in unison, bowing. After being seated, parents, other students, and teachers looked on in awe as the graduating 6th graders ceremonially walked in...

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A Japanese, First Grade Janken Jungle

January 31, 2012
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A Japanese, First Grade Janken Jungle

Today was a really fun day with my first graders. In class today, we were doing the final lesson on animals, so I decided to make it fun for the kids. It’s not always easy coming up with new English activities to do in a Japanese classroom, but I thought of something interesting. We did a quick review of some of the different animals I introduced in the last couple weeks back: duck, goose, eagle, owl, tiger, lion, bear, giraffe, etc.. I made the review quick so we’d have time to complete the animal masks that we started working on last week. Kids had all kinds of crazy colored animals. There were blue lions,...

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The Trouble With Teaching At a Shogakko

January 24, 2012
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The Trouble With Teaching At a Shogakko

Ah, teaching in Japan, one of the most fulfilling experiences you could ask for. The sun shines everyday, even on rainy days the sun shines just on my school. Birds chirps in English, the children are always 200% genki and merry, parents of your students greet you with fresh fruits in the morning, and you never have a difficult work day… RIININNNGGGGGGGGG!!! Hey, everybody, why are you guys in my apart…huh? Is this a article? Oh no, I must have been dream-blogging again. Please forgive me. Let me just read what I wrote…hmm…umm…ok. Quite a bit of that isn’t exactly true. No, teaching at a shogakko (Japanese public school isn’t perfect), but it’s one...

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