Marla at Okuganaya

On Friday Marla came with me to Okuganaya and got to participate in my classes there. Unfortunately, I only had two classes for the whole day, but they were both still a lot of fun. In the grade 1, 2 and 3 class we made paper Christmas trees, so while the kids were coming up to the Japanese teacher and I and saying “three stars please”, or whatever else they wanted, Marla was wandering around helping them put together their trees. Then in the grade 4, 5 and 6 class we sang Jingle Bells about a hundred times, then sang Jingle Bells with a little dance/gesture thing, then practiced Christmas words. After the classes were done Marla made friends with the tea lady, who taught her how to fold and origami crane, as well as how to make onigiri from the left over lunch rice. Then we had lunch with the grade 4 class, where Marla caused one girl to ask “Why does she keep looking at me?” After lunch Marla got to experience a very common part of being an ALT: we sat in the staffroom with nothing to do until it was time to go home. Tomorrow she is going to come to my Special Need’s class and help us make gingerbread houses. Here are the pictures:

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And a video:

Ikuno Fall Festival

Today Meghan and I went to the fall festival in Ikuno, which is where Okuganaya Elementary is located. It wasn’t quite as long as the one in Asago, but it was still pretty interesting to watch. I got to see some of my students too, which was nice. One kid, who I’m pretty sure is in Kindergarten, actually remembered my name. It’s really impressive because not only do most of my students not know how to say my name, but I have only had one class with Kindergarten. Anyway, here are the pictures:

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And a video:

Asago Sports Day Super-Post

Yesterday was Sports Day, and since I took tons of pictures and videos this post is going to be pretty large. It seemed like the entire town came to see the event, along with a tv crew. I was asked a number of times whether or not we have anything like Sports Day in Canada, and the closest thing I could think of was Track and Field Day, but they aren’t even really the same.

In case I haven’t really described how Sports Day works, I’ll summarize it here. All the students are divided into two teams: Shiro (white) and Aka (red. For most events, the teams are broken down by gender, and then by age so there are usually four rounds of everything. The events range from sprints and relay races, to obstacle courses and the caterpillar race. Somehow the teams get points at the end of each event, but at the end everyone was cheering so much that I couldn’t tell who had won.

Everyone was really happy all day, which translated to a higher than normal number of students approaching me and trying to say something in English. I also met a few people from the town that spoke English much better than I expected. Among these were the mayor, a city councilor, and one of my student’s mothers (she spoke nearly fluently, so I hope her daughter is somewhat similar).

Anyway, here are the videos:

Warm Up:

Solan Dance:

Shiro Cheerleading:

Aka Chearleading:

And here are the pictures:

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