Early impressions (4)

More from my diary when I first came to Japan.

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I saw a sign that said: "It is keep off per classification yard."
What?

***

In a tourist magazine I read the following disclaimer:
"The publisher bears no responsibility for the contents of this publication."
Then who does?

***

There was this show teaching English. They had an English guy teaching English. The irony is that though the English teacher was teaching correct English, the subtitle guy subtitled it wrongly. Eg:
"Singing song is fun."
"Riding wave is fun."
Should really help to improve Japanese people's English...

***

Every time I find something bearable to have on TV in the background, the show changes into something really irritating. I gradually become aware of hyperactive Japanese guys shouting at each other, and have to resume channel-surfing...

***

The other day I went to the bathroom and found this message in the cubicle:
"HOW TO FLUSH THE TOILET: The toilet will automatically flush when you place your palm at the point." (There was an accompanying illustration.) Only in Japan do you need instructions on how to flush a toilet. I've never seen so many different ways of doing it. Quite often it will just do it, seemingly randomly, of its own accord. Whether you're finished or not!

Early impressions (3)

More of my diary when I first came to Japan.

***

It's getting really cold now. It will get quite a bit colder than this, though. Today I tried to find a nice warm, padded jacket - everyone wears them here - but they all make me look like the Michelin Man.

I've been trying out origami; I bought a book of patterns. It's fun. What I like about it is that you can't rush it, or do other things at the same time. I'm used to surfing the 'net while typing an email while listening to music while channel surfing on TV... But with origami, you have to sit and focus on what you're doing.

I realised that the main reason I'm shy about going into restaurants by myself isn't primarily because I'm shy about speaking Japanese. I just don't like going into restaurants by myself. I mean, even in Australia. Restaurants are social places.

What I am enjoying are frozen dinners, supermarket meals, and convenience store meals. That sounds bad... but they're so good and cheap! For dinner tonight, I had some gyoza (Chinese dumplings - 'jiao zi' in Chinese), a small frozen pizza, some Vietnamese cold rolls, a slice of baked cheesecake and a mini Kit Kat. Okay, I ate too much...

The convenience store has a selection of pre-packaged meals that they'll heat up for you. There are some really good rice dishes, and some pasta dishes, and this nice udon laksa... it's like, sure, if I tried, I could probably cook meals slightly better than the convenience store meals. But these meals are like $4 or $5 and require No Preparation Time From Me. When you get home at 10pm, you don't feel like cooking anything but the most simple stir-fry...

I do have a few bad temptations, as far as food goes. There are some really delicious frozen cream-based pasta meals that I like. I cook them in my toaster oven and slather them with parmesan. One of these meals costs under $4 and it's very filling; not like Australian frozen dinners where you always need something else to supplement the meal...

(I'm finding that most things here are cheaper than back home. I never thought of Australia as an expensive country, but it seems that with the strength of our dollar, we are more expensive.)

Then there's the chocolate croissants, but actually these aren't such a temptation as the bakeries nearest work are not so great; I only eat one when I haven't eaten breakfast and have no time to eat something decent.

Gyoza are a huge temptation. I always loved jiao zi but never found them often back home. In Japan they're everywhere. And they're soooo good... but they're fried in a lot of oil...

I'm also eating burgers a little more often than back home. My usual lunch is at Subway, but some days after an afternoon of teaching, my 'hamu to chedda cheezu tosuto' just isn't enough, so I get a Becker's Burger... they're so good...

I don't know why I'm rambling on about food... it's not like I'm hungry, having eaten so much... I always say you shouldn't go into a supermarket when you're hungry. That's probably why I ended up buying far too much this evening. I bought about eight things I felt like eating and only got through half of them, hahah...

What did I do today, apart from go to church? Hmmm... I came back through Yokohama station and tried to go shopping to buy a padded jacket... it really is so cold... I'm wearing the kind of clothes I would wear for winter in Australia, and the cold just bites through them like I'm not wearing them at all.

The shopping centres around Yokohama station are labyrinthine... I get so lost. I bought a few bits and pieces, including - I'm ashamed to say - more food. I bought Tim Tams (I'm such a sad Australian... you can only find them in specialty shops, but I've found a few of them...). I found Time Out bars as well! And green curry sauce... mmm... I want to eat Thai green curry, enough that I will actually be motivated to cook it. I haven't had it since I moved here. I also bought an Indian curry sauce which looks good. The only curry I've had here is 'curry rice', a peculiarly Japanese invention which, while not bad, is just not the same. I have a rice cooker, but I think I'll just buy pre-cooked steamed rice from the convenience store.

(Convenience stores really are convenient. There are three within three minutes' walk of my house. I even pay my utilities bills at the 'conbeni'.)

You can really find most foods here if you put your mind to it. Though sometimes only a particular variety of a food is common.

For example, virtually all Italian restaurants serve these huge but anaemic spaghetti dishes with a meagre sprinkle of mushrooms or clams or small bacon pieces or whatever... I find the sauces a bit disappointing. I'd love a rich, hearty, tomato-ey lasagna full of mushrooms and onion... mmm... or maybe penne pasta bake... some type of pasta other than spaghetti...

Another example is bread. Virtually all bread is white, and very thickly sliced. It's fresh and delicious. But it's bloating, especially in the morning. I'm so used to eating multigrain bread, which I prefer, that I struggle to eat breakfast at all now. So now I am buying rye bread, the only other option available. It's very similar to white bread - in Australia it probably wouldn't be called rye at all - but slightly more palatable.

Generally I'm eating about as wide a variety of food here as I would back home. And to be honest I don't eat that much Japanese food; only when I eat out with others. When I'm really hungry, I want something filling and hearty, and sometimes Japanese food just doesn't fit the bill. I do love Japanese noodles though, and I like nabe and shabu shabu (both forms of Japanese hotpot).

Okay, I'm really sounding food obsessed... what else did I do today... then I came back home, ate (too much) dinner, *finally* got rid of my HUGE bag of cardboard boxes and papers (this kind of garbage is only collected once a month, so they have been waiting a long time), had a bath, and spent a couple of hours surfing the web collecting idioms and proverbs for use in teaching.

Japanese people love baths, they are for relaxation as well as washing, and nearly all Japanese people love going to hot springs and the like. I've never been big on baths but I'm kind of getting into it, mostly because it's so cold...

Students really have trouble with my accent when I say the sound 'ni-'. For example, a whole class of people were stumped by the simple question "did you have a late night?" They kept repeating the word 'nought?' 'nate?' in confusion. Then again last week, a student couldn't understand me when I said "the ninth floor".

When my co-worker with his 'standard American' accent, says these words, everyone understands. We both tried out saying them to the Japanese staff. To the two of us, they sound so similar, but to Japanese people, apparently not!

I made a resolution today to study Japanese for an average of half an hour a day, each day this week. I am being Too Lazy.

Teaching English for the first time: general advice

This continues from my first post about teaching English and my post about lesson planning.

Here are some additional, general pieces of advice.

Control your language

One very important skill you will learn 'on the job' is how to grade your own language. You will need to learn how to speak more clearly, to use simpler grammar and vocabulary, and to explain things clearly, with examples.

A lot of students say they can't understand their new foreign teacher. The new teacher, without realising it, is firing off sentences far too quickly, without understanding what students will and won't understand.

This is a problem for many a beginning teacher. We use heaps of idioms and figures of speech in our everyday speaking, without even realising it. It does take some practice, but once you get used to it, you can modulate your language according to each new student. If you see a new student and you don't know their level, you can greet them with very simple English. If they respond in a halting way, you'll know to keep your language very simple. If they speak smoothly and confidently, you can ask your next questions a little more naturally, and give more information yourself. After a few exchanged sentences, you can get a very rough feel for the kind of level of English you can use with that student.

Some tips for speaking to low-level students:
-For low level students, stick to simple questions. If they're struggling a lot, offer example answers. ('Where are you from?' (pause) 'Are you from Yokohama? Tokyo?')
-Say a few words and then pause to give time to process. It takes a while for beginners to mentally translate sentences.
-Smooth the way by using example words that are same in Japanese and English (burger, beer, Japanese city names). Obviously works less well if you don't know any Japanese or which words are similar!

As you get more experience, you'll get more of a feel for things students will and won't know. But bear in mind that most of your students will have learned English through classes and textbooks, so even higher level students may not have very good grasp of idioms.

Keep your instructions clear

Similar to 'controlling your language', when you explain tasks to students, keep it simple and to the point. For lower level students, use gestures and examples to help show your meaning. Also, keep the students with you as you explain the important things.

Example bad explanation: 'Okay, I'd like you guys to form pairs and practise page 50 from the textbook, one of you is gonna ask the other the questions from the top half of the page, and the other is gonna ask the bottom questions; after you finish I want you to solve this puzzle using the answers from the previously answered questions. Okay?'

Example good explanation: 'Okay, please open your book. Look at page 50.' (hold up the book to show the page, wait for students to open)
'Now, you are partners.' (gesturing to each student, putting them in pairs with your gesture) 'You're A, B. A, B.'
'Student A. Please ask your partner these questions.' (gesture to the questions)
'Student B. Please ask your partner these questions.' (gesture)
-(get students to do the exercise)-
'Okay! Now, look at the bottom of the page, here. (gesture) What's the answer to this puzzle?...

Notice the short sentences, the pauses for students to follow you, the gestures, and the delivering key information only at the appropriate moment. Of course, with higher-level classes, you don't want to dumb it down this much, and you can reduce the number of gestures. Still, even with them, you don't want to clutter your most important explanations with lots of unnecessary talking; they'll be straining to work out exactly what you're asking and to get the most important info.

If the exercise is not completely straightforward, you may also want to demonstrate how to do the exercise, by pairing up with a partner and asking them the first question or two from the exercise.

If you are totally new to teaching, I'd recommend actually practising this style of speaking yourself before going in front of a class. You might think 'oh, that sounds so easy', but until you're used to it, you'll likely find yourself putting in lots of 'well, let's see here...'s and 'what I'm gonna ask you to do's and 'oh and if you wouldn't mind...'s. Similarly, you could practise how you would explain the difference between two words, or the meaning of certain vocab words, in a really simple and clear way.

Check students' understanding

After you have explained something, unless the meaning could not possibly be misunderstood, check the students understand it!

For example, if you've just explained the difference between 'his' and 'him', write up a few short example sentences on the board, with gaps ('This is ___ book', 'I talked to ___ yesterday', etc). Get students to try to supply the missing words.

Or if you have just given students an exercise to do, you can check their understanding. 'So, what are you going to write?' 'Are you going to write, or just speak?'

Speaking together

Get students to work in pairs or small groups. Give them as much speaking time as possible. Unless you have a small class, try to limit activities where you ask every member of the class a question, or get every person to report back on what they talked about. Students in pairs get to talk more, and practise more.

If you are doing pairwork, and you have an odd number of students, you must decide whether to make a group of three, or to partner one of the students yourself. If you do the former, try to arrange it so that different people make a group of 3 in each activity. (Obviously, students in a group of 3 get less individual time to talk/practise.) If you do the latter, again, try to partner yourself with different students for different activities, and take pauses to check on the progress of other students.

Drilling

Don't be shy about drilling the students. It might seem boring to you, to have them repeat the same sentences several times. But if you've ever learned a language, you'll know that sometimes you just need to get your mouth used to saying the words! 

Correcting students

When students are doing freer conversation, try not to interject and correct their every utterance. In my experience, Japanese students usually *do* want to be corrected if they are making errors, but choose your battles, so as not to discourage them with excessive corrections. If they can't express themselves or really foul up some language, correct them, but if they just leave out a 'the' or 'a', let it slide (unless 'the' and 'a' is the point of the lesson).

When you correct students, here are some handy ideas:

Get them to 'see' the error for themselves. For example, repeat back their error, emphasising the wrong word. ('He HAVE a car?') Or ask a question about it. ('You HAVE WORKED in Osaka last year? Do you work there now? No? Okay, how can we say this?')

Get them to repeat the correct sentence.

After the exercise has finished, put a few sentences you overheard on the board. Get students to look at them themselves and work out which are correct and incorrect.

If someone is making a common error, or several people make the same error, write it up on the board and get students to correct it and think about what the correct English is.

In my experience, many Japanese students have struggled with English learning precisely because they are not confident about just practising whatever language they think of, taking risks, making mistakes. In school, a lot of them practised endless reading and grammar, without much conversation practice. This means that what a lot of students most need is the chance to speak a lot and improve their fluency. Of course they should be helped to speak *correctly*, but be careful you don't correct them SO much that they can't get any flow going.

Nobody is speaking!

It depends on your class. Some classes will be a buzz of confident energy, where conversation flows freely. In other classes, getting any response from anybody will be like pulling teeth. What do you do in this situation?

I can tell you there is no easy answer, but some tips:
-get students speaking in pairs simultaneously; if several people are talking at the same time, nobody feels self-conscious about their voice being heard by the whole class.
-limit the number of questions you ask the class as a whole. Or, ask the questions, but provide the answer within a few seconds.*
-if their silence stems from lack of creativity or ideas, put up some ideas on the board.
-teach them how to ask a variety of questions. Teach them how to answer, and then add extra information. (Eg, if someone asks 'do you like video games?', don't just say 'yes'. You would go on to talk about what games you like, how often you play, etc.)

-make sure their silence is not caused by total lack of comprehension of the material. If students are in a class that is far too advanced for them (unfortunately, a common occurrence, at least in my experience), there may not be much you can do, except try to schedule bits of respite in the lesson where students can freely use language they *do* know confidently to talk about familiar topics.

*(This is not always recommended; sometimes students genuinely need a long time to understand the question and formulate an answer. You want to give these students the time to think it through. But in other cases, students just don't want to speak out in front of a whole class, especially when they are not confident about their answer. If you have such a class, don't spend half an hour fruitlessly waiting for answers to questions.)

Sometimes you do everything you can and they still don't talk much (in my experience, the worst situation is where you have a class of 3 shy people, because you can't just put them in pairs and get them to ignore their other classmates).

Random Pictures (6)

Wow. The Japanese diet is known for being quite healthy, while we Westerners are thought to enjoy junk food a little too much for our own good. But I have never seen such a gargantuan stack of calories in Australia.

This is a sculpture at the Sapporo Snow Festival. The character is called Marimokkori, and is a popular character from Hokkaido, also popular with children. I thought 'oh, I have a dirty mind, that creature looks like it's got a boner, ha ha of course that can't be the case'. No. It really does.

I saw this billboard while waiting for a train in Kikuna. And no, I don't know what it is, either.

[By the way, if you have been a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed how rarely I have been posting lately. That's because I'm actually back in Australia at the moment - these last few posts were pre-written - and running out of things to say. If I ever go back to Japan, I'm sure I will post more actively again, but for now, this blog will be coming to a bit of a hiatus.]

Early impressions (2)

As I mentioned, this series of posts will include diary entries I made when I first came to Japan.

***

(Dec 2007)

Last week I went outside the department store building where I work, to get my usual coffee, and what did I find but a full gospel choir! There were about 80 of them, Japanese people, but singing English Christmas carols and some popular gospel tunes ('Joyful Joyful' was one, I seem to remember). They were really good! With the faster songs they even did the whole swaying, clapping gospel choir thing.

Lots of passers-by were stopping and smiling. It was very infectious.

***

I got a haircut on the weekend. To get there I went along Motomachi street, near Chinatown. This street is pretty cool. It reminds me of a street in Paris or Sydney (okay, so Paris and Sydney are pretty different...)... the road is small, quiet, and one-way, and the street is lined with designer stores. Of course I didn't buy any designer goods but I had a nice cappuccino and salami pesto sandwich in a nice bakery.

The hairdresser was cool; the teacher I replaced had recommended him. I will go back to him because the service was so good, I feel like I am already 'his' customer.

When I first went into the salon, he was making endless small talk with his client. After he was done with her, he started with me - a continual stream of questions and conversation. It was fun, and I couldn't help thinking - hairdressers really are the same all over the world.

The hairdresser speaks English, but punctuated with the most 'anou's and 'sou ka's I've ever heard... a lot of Japanese people use the occasional Japanese word or phrase when they are thinking - 'etouuu' ('uhh...') is common. My manager often says 'nandarou...' (which means something like 'let me think...').

I have one really beginner student who sometimes simply says Japanese sentences instead of English ones, because she simply lacks the words. I'm pretty proud of myself - one student said he went to a casino, and she asked me a question in Japanese. I translated it 'how much money did you lose?' I could understand enough Japanese to work out what she wanted to say.

I can understand pretty well all of the train announcements now. 'mamonaku' means 'presently'. 'kakueki teesha' means 'local train'. 'Omiya-yuki' means 'bound for Omiya'. Then there's 'doa ga shimarimasu - go-chui kudasai' ('the doors are closing - take care please')

***

Reading hiragana and katakana has proved more difficult than I first imagined. I had pretty well learned the hiragana when I left Australia, and a few katakana. In my first week in Kyoto I kept looking up the hiragana and katakana on signs to practise and learn the characters I didn't remember. Since then I have intermittently practised reading hiragana and katakana in my textbook, on signs, and from children's books.

Despite all this, I still haven't *mastered* them. I still have to *think*. I guess some things, you can't just learn by osmosis. You have to study them properly, until you really know them. Just because you're surrounded by Japanese characters all day, it doesn't mean you'll magically learn them all without any real effort.

The one thing I do seem to be gradually improving in without studying, is numbers - I understand them more quickly. Sometimes now, I can understand how much money someone is asking for, without looking. Haha... but not that often...

The other day I got a letter. I thought it was for the previous resident, as the label was all in Japanese. But actually it was for me (from my insurer). Seems I don't even recognise my own name any more. I've had to write my name in katakana a few times now... and write my year of birth in terms of the Emperor's reign.

Did you know that? I was pretty surprised! On official documents, you write your birthdate as the year of the Emperor's reign. For example, if you were born in 1980, you were born in the year '55'... the 55th year of the previous Emperor's rule. This year is 19 - the 19th year of the current Emperor. My train pass had 19/12/11 as the end date - meaning 11 Dec 2007... who would have thought?

Teaching English for the first time: planning a lesson

(See my earlier blog post on teaching English for the first time in Japan. It has some more general tips.)

So... you're a brand-new teacher. You're given a textbook with a grammar point for the day, and you have no teaching experience, and you're going to teach a 50-minute conversation class.

Here's an idea for how you could teach a lesson. For the sake of a concrete example, let's imagine we are teaching 'present continuous' (I am going, he is eating).

1. Warm-up: give students a few minutes to chat - maybe give them a random conversation topic - or some kind of vocabulary game.

[In this case, I might get them to talk about hobbies or give them a vocab game to think up different verbs. It will be useful for the lesson to come.]

2. Introduce the language of the class: this could take the form of setting up a situation and getting students to comment on it (see this previous post), reading a small article, looking at a dialogue, etc.

[In the case of present continuous, I'd try doing a simple activity, like miming reading. I'd ask students, 'what am I doing?' and get them to answer me. If they can't give me a correct sentence, I'd provide it ('you are reading') and get them to repeat it.

Then I'd do another gesture, like eating, and get them all to say what I'm doing. Repeat a couple more times. I'd write the sentence on the board ('you are __ing').

Get them to practise the exercise with each other (eg, one person acts a gesture, the other guesses).

I'd put up words like 'I' and 'he' and ask them to give me the sentence (I AM _ing, he IS _ing'), get them to repeat, write it on the board. If the class is not having too much trouble with the material thus presented, also cover questions (at least, 'what are you doing?', 'what is he doing?' etc)

Drill key sentences (get students to repeat them, correct their intonation etc).]

3. Get more exposure to the language point using material from the textbook.

[For example, try a listening activity, or practise reading a dialogue together.]

4. Practise the language point a bit more actively, but still in a controlled way. For example, use a questionnaire or survey.

[I might put students in pairs to do a worksheet with pictures of people doing different things. Students ask each other what the people on their sheet are doing.]

5. Practise the language in freer conversation. Set up a situation where students can have a more natural conversation, or roleplay practise.

[I might have students pretend to call each other on the phone, and ask each other what they (and their family) are doing... it might be nice to have students practise a varient of what they did in the listening activity or dialogue. Another thing I like to do for present continuous is, if possible, take the students into a public area and get them to, in pairs and while speaking, make a list of things they see people doing.]

This is not a perfect lesson, nor is it one-size-fits-all. A lot of Japanese English conversation schools use a lesson structure a little like this. It's a bit formulaic, and you'll need to inject some personality into it to make it interesting, but it can work quite well. If you have absolutely no idea where to start, you could use this 'formula' as a basis for planning your own lesson. Then after the lesson, think about what went well and what didn't. If you taught it again, what would you change?

Sometimes, instead of grammar, you'll be teaching 'functional language' - for example, general English for 'ordering at a restaurant' or 'disagreeing with someone'. In this case, you can follow the same steps, but one nice idea - so long as you haven't got real beginners - is getting students to practise roleplaying at the start of the lesson - eg, 'here are your menus, try ordering from them' - so you can see what they do and don't know. Then you can get some ideas from them for language, and put them on the board, as well as teaching them new expressions and ideas. This is also nice for helping students feel like they learned something, and could do something new at the end of the lesson that they couldn't do at the beginning.

Lesson order

Whatever you decide to do, if you are a new teacher, I would recommend a 'safe' general lesson order of:
1. introducing language point
2. drilling (students repeat examples of the language)
3. controlled practice
4. free practice

'Controlled' practice refers to speaking practice where you are kind of 'forced' to use the language point in a fairly structured way. For example, a questionnaire or textbook exercise where students must ask and answer questions, using the language point. 'Free' practice' is where students talk, or do a roleplay or conversation, where they can use the language point where appropriate.

The difference here is that in controlled practice, students don't need to think very creatively, or come up with their own ideas - they are focusing on making the sentences correctly and being accurate. Then in the freer practice, improving fluency, using the language appropriately in conversation, and thinking of your own ideas is important.

It's important, though, to give students a good amount of time to use the language, not just study how to make sentences.

Thinking about the language

Another thing I would recommend is, if you are a new teacher, take a few minutes to think about the language point you're going to teach. This doesn't come easily at first, but with time...

If you are at a Japanese-style English conversation school, you've likely got a textbook with clearly defined units and language points, which students study at home before coming to class; the teacher is not expected to spend much time 'teaching' grammar or language. Still, questions may come up and it's good to know what you will and won't cover. Also, if you give each language point some consideration, you will build up your understanding of English and how different pieces of language work, which will really enrich your teaching.

As an example, with present continuous, think about:

-How is it formed? (I am _ing, he/she/it IS __ing, you/they/we ARE _ing)

-What are some uses of this language? Are we going to cover all of them in class? (For example, 'I am eating dinner now, please call me later' is talking about an action happening right now. 'I am working hard these days' is talking about a recent activity, but you are not necessarily doing it at this moment. 'I am going out tonight' is a future activity.)

Unless you have a higher level class, or you are doing a review of something the students should already know, I'd recommend focusing on one main use per class. Then you can design activities practising that use a lot, so students can really understand it and use it.

-Are there any pitfalls with this language? (Yes; we generally don't use present continuous for 'state' verbs, that is, verbs that show a state rather than an activity. Examples are be, know, love. We don't usually say 'I am knowing him' or 'he is being a doctor'. There are exceptions, but better to cover in a more advanced class.)

I have one more post on the theme of teaching English: see my next post.

Early impressions (part 1)

I was reading back through old journals of mine and I found some entries I'd written early in my stay in Japan. These posts were written in my first few months living in Yokohama (mostly early 2008). I thought I'd post some of them for you, since, although the content is old for me, it may be new for people who haven't spent much time in Japan. ^_^

***

Random cultural observations:

In an elevator, one guy held back for a moment to let two others leave first. Those two men bowed to him and said 'sumimasen' ('excuse me'), before leaving.

After living here so long, it's easier for me to kneel, sitting on my feet. Before I could only do it for a few seconds.

All women carry handkerchiefs. They are not for blowing your nose; rather, for drying your hands in a public restroom. I knew this before but I only noticed recently that I was constantly the only person drying my hands on my coat.

In Western countries, 'yes' is a tick. In Japan, it's a circle. A teacher at my school always goes through students' work and circles the correct sentences in red pen. To me it looks like she's marking them wrong.

Also, some gestures are different. To gesture 'come here', you wave your palm down, which to us can actually look like the gesture for 'go away'. Also, to gesture "me", instead of touching your chest, you point to your nose.

Crabs are gestured by making 'scissors' with your index and middle fingers. Cats are gestured by making one hand into a fist - a 'paw' - and holding it to your face like a maneki neko.

This doesn't always happen, but if you're out in a group and someone is ordering food for the table, you can often expect them to order WAY too much. And then when it comes, they won't eat it quickly. Food often sits on the table getting cold while people are talking, and nobody ever eats the last piece.

People often ask you if you're cold, when it isn't cold. And people almost always leave their coats on while riding trains and doing their shopping, even though it's far too warm for comfort.