(no subject)
today was my first day actually working in a school... but since it's the first day of the term there weren't actually any classes, just a two hour long ceremony in the stifling gym (japanese people don't believe in air conditioning, but that's another issue). the only thing that was required of me was that i stand in front of the entire school and introduce myself... in japanese. (it was okay though: it was literally "hi, i'm emily. i'm from america. nice to meet you! i'm done.")
the real event of the day is... i finally lost my squat-toilet virginity D: if you've been to asia before, you've probably encountered squat toilets and understand why i've tried so hard to avoid them for the past month. it's basically like a urinal, except embedded into the floor like a stinky porcelain trench. in order to use one, (if you're female) you actually have to take off your pants to avoid peeing or splattering on them. most places in japan have at least one "western" toilet in each bathroom to accommodate the handicap and elderly, but the schools are a little behind... so even though i checked all the stalls with my fingers crossed, today they were all squatters and i was forced to face the greatest test i have encountered in my life in japan thus far. it was not pleasant, and is not recommended.
the one bit of teaching i actually did today took place after school. (no, i don't know what the students were doing all day, but i know what i was doing--sitting in the office doing nothing!) every year there is a speech contest for which a few students from each school memorize a short article, story or original essay in english to recite for a panel of judges. there were three students from my school who hope to compete next monday, so i offered to stay after and help them with their pronunciation and delivery.
a lot of my coworkers who've been to speech contests in previous years hate them because they're "boring" and "the students just memorize the words without knowing what they're saying" but occasionally in coaching students they came up against unique challenges... for example, one coworker's student showed up with a speech that he was pretty sure had been translated from japanese to english using babelfish. there was literally one sentence in the entire speech that was grammatically correct, and the rest was so garbled he couldn't even tell what the student was trying to say. another problem is pronunciation. even though you can write japanese words using english letters, there is no way to write english words using the japanese alphabets, because many of the sounds in english don't exist in their language, for example in japanese there's no distinction between "l" and "r," and the "f" and "h" sounds are similar. one of my students was doing a speech on MLK and kept stumbling over the word "black" because the japanesified pronunciation is "burakku" (she's a smart girl though, and is getting better!) another of my coworkers (tomek) was working with a girl who was doing a speech on peter pan, and had problems saying "captain hook."
this is the dialogue that took place:
student: blahblahblah, etc. captain f*ck...
tomek: um... what?
student: captain... f*ck?
tomek: um... no. hook. repeat after me: captain hook.
student: captain... f***ck.
***5 minutes later***
tomek: ... maybe you should just say "the evil pirate captain"
anyway, in spite of the difficulties, my students are working very hard (in the way of stereotypical japanese students)! tomorrow i'm working with them again, so hopefully they'll kick ass in the competition... or at least avoid inadvertently saying dirty words in front of the judges!
the real event of the day is... i finally lost my squat-toilet virginity D: if you've been to asia before, you've probably encountered squat toilets and understand why i've tried so hard to avoid them for the past month. it's basically like a urinal, except embedded into the floor like a stinky porcelain trench. in order to use one, (if you're female) you actually have to take off your pants to avoid peeing or splattering on them. most places in japan have at least one "western" toilet in each bathroom to accommodate the handicap and elderly, but the schools are a little behind... so even though i checked all the stalls with my fingers crossed, today they were all squatters and i was forced to face the greatest test i have encountered in my life in japan thus far. it was not pleasant, and is not recommended.
the one bit of teaching i actually did today took place after school. (no, i don't know what the students were doing all day, but i know what i was doing--sitting in the office doing nothing!) every year there is a speech contest for which a few students from each school memorize a short article, story or original essay in english to recite for a panel of judges. there were three students from my school who hope to compete next monday, so i offered to stay after and help them with their pronunciation and delivery.
a lot of my coworkers who've been to speech contests in previous years hate them because they're "boring" and "the students just memorize the words without knowing what they're saying" but occasionally in coaching students they came up against unique challenges... for example, one coworker's student showed up with a speech that he was pretty sure had been translated from japanese to english using babelfish. there was literally one sentence in the entire speech that was grammatically correct, and the rest was so garbled he couldn't even tell what the student was trying to say. another problem is pronunciation. even though you can write japanese words using english letters, there is no way to write english words using the japanese alphabets, because many of the sounds in english don't exist in their language, for example in japanese there's no distinction between "l" and "r," and the "f" and "h" sounds are similar. one of my students was doing a speech on MLK and kept stumbling over the word "black" because the japanesified pronunciation is "burakku" (she's a smart girl though, and is getting better!) another of my coworkers (tomek) was working with a girl who was doing a speech on peter pan, and had problems saying "captain hook."
this is the dialogue that took place:
student: blahblahblah, etc. captain f*ck...
tomek: um... what?
student: captain... f*ck?
tomek: um... no. hook. repeat after me: captain hook.
student: captain... f***ck.
***5 minutes later***
tomek: ... maybe you should just say "the evil pirate captain"
anyway, in spite of the difficulties, my students are working very hard (in the way of stereotypical japanese students)! tomorrow i'm working with them again, so hopefully they'll kick ass in the competition... or at least avoid inadvertently saying dirty words in front of the judges!