Category Archives for "Teaching English In Japan"

I remember making the decision to quit my job as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) with Interac like it was yesterday.  The anxiety is still quite fresh in my mind.  I remember thinking “How am I gonna explain my reasoning to people?”  More importantly, I started thinking “If you’re not ALT teaching if you’re not […]

Unless I have something extremely pressing to do, I always help the students clean after lunch. As my students and I were cleaning on this one particular day, I was in the hallway sweeping and I overheard some of my 2nd graders randomly calling out colors in English. My ears quickly zeroed in on this […]

One of the things that made my jaw drop as a first-time teacher in a Japanese public school (in a good way) was seeing teachers and students, nearly every single school day, scrubbing, wiping and cleaning their classrooms…their school…together. Yes, there is a staff member who helps to take care of some of the odds […]

I was making my “Wonder Goo” run the other day, it’s this super store with video games, DVDs, books, and all kinds of other cool stuff. As I was walking through the store, being the nerd boy that I am, I stopped because I saw a cool-looking X-Men First Class, DVD display. I watched some […]

Anybody ever have “Career Day” in elementary school? If not, Career Day was a chance for guest speakers to come to a school to talk about what they do for a living.  This would give kids an idea of the possibilities, of what they could be, what they could do with their lives.  I always […]

People decide to come to Japan for so many interesting reasons.  Some expats have an extreme fascination with Japanese culture: anime, J-pop, Japanese festivals, and the Japanese language. Others may be seeking a way to broaden their horizons, broaden their resumes, give their dating game a much-needed boost (let’s be honest), or even find a […]

“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 […]