Clik here to view.
Settling in, school life and summer festivals
Once I found out the meaning of the kanji (Chinese characters) on my air con remote, my apartment has been was less like a sauna and a lot more liveable! I’ve had the TV on as much as possible trying...
View ArticleClik here to view.
School festivals!
The first two weeks at school were dominated by the Sports Festival (taikusai) and Cultural Festival (bunkasai). Both took place on the weekends and were a chance for the school and students to show...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Visiting School Tuesdays
Imagine a school where all teachers and students know each other by name, everyone eats together and everyone helps to clean the school. To me this sounds like an idyllic school; almost too good to be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
”Gomen ne gani” (Sorry crab!)
These were the words of a student as she one-by-one snapped the legs off an orange, Echizen crab. I watched with morbid curiosity as the crustacean was pulled, picked and broken to pieces before every...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Heating in schools: Furry underwear and dalek heaters
How has Japan adapted to its piping hot summer and finger-numbingly cold winter? I’m finding out that it’s not in the most high-tech ways! Four months ago, I first entered my school and a thermometer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Unicycles are not for the faint-hearted
Over the last couple of months I’ve watched with admiration as the ichi-nen sei’s at my visiting school have been learning to ride unicycles (ichi rinsha). Since 1989 unicycling has been part of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Teaching pronunciation from behind a mask
It was a usual Friday afternoon in January when I walked into my favourite ichinen sei class, expecting to see their smiling faces. Instead I was met with thirty white-masked faces looking back at me....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Enkai etiquette: what NOT to do at a Japanese work party
Never wear jeans to an enkai, nor turn up late, nor cross your legs (if you’re a girl). I did all of these things with typical gaijin etiquette and spent the first thirty minutes with red cheeks from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Speech contest: In the teacher’s chair
Today I listened to 120 students recite a speech they each had written. It’s part of an English speech contest for all first and second year students, something which James, my predecessor started at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Into the mud: planting rice with students
“Squelch, sludge, squish” were the sounds of my feet being sucked into the muddy rice field. The grey-brown mud squeezed between my toes and held my foot under, before I could prized it away to take...
View Article
