For the past 10 months, I’ve been an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher)  at two junior high schools in rural Japan. My bigger school has 380 students and is surrounded by rice paddies and rolling green hills. My visiting school is in a mountain valley that is famous for watermelon, and only has 40 students. I’m the only foreigner at both schools, and every day is rich in different ways. Some days I’m bored and unsatisfied, while other times I feel a deep and profound connection with students and teachers. I could easily complain, but its much more fulfilling and beneficial for my well-being to focus on the good. Here are a few of my best moments from the past few weeks.

Making Friends with the Music Teacher, 5/25

After lunch I usually alternate between playing basketball in the gym, playing frisbee outside, patrolling the halls trying to find students to talk to, or decompressing at my desk. For students, these precious 20 minutes are the only free time they have all day.

On this particular day, I had just finished eating lunch in the noisy cafeteria, and I was walking with the new music teacher who barely speaks English. I feel a connection with her because we are almost the same age, but my Japanese is poor and her English is nonexistent.

In past conversations, I’ve asked her simple questions in Japanese – なんさいですか (Nansai desu ka? How old are you? ) but I couldn’t think of anything in this moment.

But suddenly I remembered that she had studied concert piano, so after our typical “How are you?” exchange, I spontaneously blurted, “I want to hear you play the piano!” To my delight, she understood, and answered: “Okay!” with a big smile. “When?” I asked. “Now?” she replied.

Sometimes my impulsiveness gets me in trouble; other times it brings me miracles.

We hurried past giggling groups of pre-teens to the music room. She sat at the piano bench, spread her music out, and began to play. For the next 20 minutes, I felt like I had transcended my own reality. I could sense her years of training in her posture and subtlety. Just an hour ago we were struggling to communicate, but now I felt we had unified.   As she played, the language wall that had existed a few minutes ago seemed to dissipate.

Then, she pulled out the sheet music for ‘Frozen,’ and I belted it kareoke style. A few students stuck their heads in, wondering what was going on. When the bell rang, it was like the wall had risen again, but with a few cracks this time. Now we have a connection, and as we continue to communicate, the language barrier will crumble.

Amber’s Passport, 6/2

I’m always looking for excuses to share my ideas, rather than just read and repeat the textbook. Recently, there was a good chance for this in ni-nensei (2nd year) classes. Their unit features a young traveler showing their passport to a customs officer at the airport. As an avid explorer, I am really excited about travel and wanted to share my feelings. So I projected my passport on the overhead screen and showed them my stamps. I encouraged them to read out loud  the names of the countries I’ve been to in the past few years:

~ New Zealand ~ Australia ~ Thailand ~ Cambodia ~ Vietnam ~ Taiwan ~ Indonesia ~ Malaysia ~ The Philippines ~ Japan ~

After college I traveled for 28 months, with about 9 months in New Zealand and 10 months in Australia with working holiday visas, and the rest of the time bouncing around Southeast Asia.  This time abroad hugely impacted my sense of self. It made me more independent and confident.  I hope that students can feel my attitude and be inspired to have their own adventures.

“Hello Goodbye” 6/8

At my visiting school, there is a small class of about 12 ichi-nensei (first year) students  who always expect me to sing as soon as I walk in the room. I’ve only taught their class about five times, and every time I’ve brought my ukulele and sang for them before the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) arrived.

I didn’t have my ukulele, but I was surprised that one girl knew the word a cappella! She approached me and opened the textbook to a page with songs on it. One of them was “Hello Goodbye” by the Beatles. I waved over another girl to sing with me. I imagine it was quite a shock for the JTE to see me and the student belting out a tune in front of her friends before we had even started class.

“It’s A Small World After All,”  5/30

In the san-nensei (3rd year) textbook, there is a brief mention of the song “It’s a Small World.” So naturally, I borrowed my teacher’s guitar and sang it for the class, without any practice. At first I struggled to find the right key and made a few mistakes, but I think it went rather well because my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) asked me to sing it for all his classes.

Sometimes, I wonder if these students think I’m crazy when I burst out into spontaneous song (and dance) in class. I hope to not only teach them English, but also show them that its okay to be loud and inspired and weird.

I love the nature near my house. I usually start my day with a walk or jog.

Early evening stroll

I found this magical spot while hiking near my house

Koi

Garden in Kanazawa

Random nature photos from Kyoto

Last month I participated in our annual ni-nensei (second-year) speech contest. The topic, ‘My Favorite Thing,’ was broad enough to elicit a myriad of ideas. Topics ranged from ‘My Clarinet’ to ‘Minecraft’ to ‘Watching the News.’

I was particularly petrified, because my superior asked me to make a speech in Japanese to open the contest. After all, if students have to speak in a language that is not native to them, it’s only fair that I should have to do the same…

I wrote my speech in English, and my supervisor helped me translate it into Japanese. My speech was about a Japanese anime that I recently started watching called “Haikyu.” (It’s about a junior high school volleyball team.) If I had to write genuinely about my favorite thing, I probably would have chosen a different topic, like teaching, nature, sports, traveling, or cooking, but I wanted to choose something my students could relate to.

I practiced over and over, showed it to my private Japanese teacher and a few friends, made a few revisions, and painstakingly memorized it. When I got up in front of my audience  of 130 students and 5 teachers, I was visibly shaking.

In stark contrast, ten minutes later, my supervisor asked me to make impromptu commentary between speakers, in English.  I spoke confidently and without a waver in my voice.

I hope that my nervousness made them feel better about their own language learning endeavors.

Thankfully, the next  15 contestants were significantly better than me. I really enjoyed seeing the shy students surprise everyone with their eloquence. One small girl who rarely speaks delivered a lovely speech about her favorite game, Dragon Quest. I’m sure students didn’t realize she was so good at English until they heard her voice amplified from behind a microphone.

The winning speech entitled ‘To The Anime Haters,’ was by a student who lived in Kentucky for the first 8 years of his life. His father is a businessman, and his accent is quite native, with a slightly southern drawl. I think he impressed everyone with his businesslike attitude and native accent, although I doubt that everyone could understand him. Here’s one of his most impressive  lines:  “To make profit from lowering birth rate, internalization,and decreasing population, anime has the potential to become a big industry. This is why I think  anime… is a big chance for Japan.”

I love speech contests, and I already got to accompany one talented student to Tokyo last year for the All-Japan Speech Contest.  Unfortunately, our winner this year isn’t eligible because he lived in America.

However, our second place boy made a beautiful speech about his classmates. His best line was: “Some of my classmates can run fast, are gamers, crybabies, small people, and so on…” It was a good line, because everyone knew who he was talking about.

He has a genuine smile, and good stage presence. If he can think of a good topic, maybe I can take him to Tokyo for the finals, too!

It’s hard to believe I’ve already been in Japan for 3 months!

I work for the JET Program, which stands for “The Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program.”  It’s sponsored by the Japanese government, who want to integrate foreign teachers into their schools to promote “cross cultural exchange”. It’s the world’s largest teaching exchange program. They employ teachers from 43 countries. Currently there are 4786 participants, and the website proclaims their goal to increase the number to 6000 before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

I am the only foreign English teacher at my school, and I started with zero Japanese. As you can imagine, I’m learning a lot!

My title is Assistant Language Teacher – or ALT – so I work alongside a JTE, or Japanese Teacher of English. It’s interesting to watch their different teaching styles and try to blend with theirs, but sometimes I feel frustrated that I don’t have more control of the class.

However, I hope that my coworkers are starting to realize that I’m serious about teaching. Some ALTs come in straight out of college whereas I spent the last few years traveling and volunteering as an English teacher.

Most of my JTEs let me take charge of the class a little bit every day. I`ve been creating slideshows about my weekend adventures, and I make these into interactive lessons. I’ve also been teaching English through songs; the students (and I!) love One Direction!

Both in and out of class, one of my biggest goals here is to give the kids the chance to approach me. I want to talk less and listen more, and give the students the chance to talk.

During lunch, I join them in their classrooms. Every teacher and student is surprised to see me there.

It works like magic. I barely have to say anything. The awkwardness of my presence forces them to talk to me. Sometimes I practice my Japanese phrases:  “Ichiban suki na dobutsu wa nan desu ka?” (What’s your favorite animal?) Usually I just try to be as quiet as possible and wait for them to talk to me, and they usually do.

There is testing this week, so a lot of English classes were cancelled. Instead of being bored at my desk I decided to participate in a PE class. I changed into my athletic clothes and joined the students in the gym. Every time they looked at me it was like a shock to their system. What is she doing here? I imagine they were thinking.

We warmed up with 5 laps around the gym, did some stretches, push ups, and sit ups, and then started playing an easy version of volleyball.

I joined a team of two preteen boys who at first seemed like they wanted nothing more than for me to disappear. Neither of them particularly like English, and I recognized one of them as being the silent and broody type from class. However, by the end of the hour, I was setting the ball for them and they were smashing it at the other team. I gave a lot of high fives, and hopefully made some new friends.

As I’m re-learning, I have to take action to make my life exciting. This is something that I discover again and again, wherever I happen to be in my life.

The other day, I stayed after school for tennis club. Wearing my athletic clothes, I waited on the side of the tennis court, holding a borrowed tennis racket, watching the students play. I noticed a small group of girls gather and whisper, looking at me over their shoulders. They approached me and asked me – in English! – if I wanted to play with them.

This is the kind of interaction that makes me feel the most proud. I kept my big mouth shut, and gave them the chance to be brave and talk to me.

A similar thing happened last week at art club after school. I asked if I could join, then quietly sat down and started drawing without speaking to anyone. Slowly, some girls began to crowd around me and see what I was drawing. (A dinosaur.) One girl in particular was fascinated with me. She stopped what she was doing and just watched me draw. Even though the girl was only 12 years old and spoke very little English, we had a beautiful interaction. She taught me some of the colors in Japanese and I praised her artwork.

On the other hand, there are moments here that feel like utter chaos.

Today, I tried to control a class that was in disaster mode. The JTE is a very quiet woman who is not confident in her English. The students in the class are immature and take advantage of her gentle personality and lack of experience and use the class to goof off.

I was amazed at how disrespectful they were today, in comparison to my other classes. They were literally working on homework for other classes and making loud and obnoxious noises while she was trying to lecture them about grammar.

Her lecture was in Japanese so I couldn’t understand or contribute at all, but I walked around the room and confiscated distracting items such as math homework and pencil cases.

I tried to get the class to practice some dialogue, since that’s what we were supposed to be studying in the textbook. In most classes, when you say “Please practice this with a partner” they actually do it, but in this class it seemed like the only groups that were talking in English were the ones I was hovering over.

Despite this rowdy class, overall the students are shy and respectful, at times almost painfully so. Games and activities are a good way to break the ice. I usually carry my ukulele and Frisbee around. Recently I bought a magic wand that I pretend to zap people with in the hallways. Hopefully my happiness and fun-loving spirit is contagious, and spreads to both the kids and teachers at my school.

Since I don’t have to make lesson plans, I have more time during the day to interact with students in a non-academic context. After lunch, I often play Frisbee with a large group outside.

So far, my biggest challenge is feeling isolated at work – some days, no one makes an effort to talk to me. Not because they are rude, but because they are busy. After all, I am the only foreigner in their school, and most teachers and not confident in their English ability. It seems like one of the best ways for me to make friends at work is to learn Japanese. It’s a huge challenge, but I’m learning, slowly but surely!

Another challenge is coping with feelings of uselessness when the JTEs start lecturing in Japanese during English class. Oftentimes I can see the students eyes glaze over – as do mine!- and I desperately want the teacher to acknowledge me, or at least talk to the class in English so I can occasionally jump in. Part of this job is learning how to be patient and work with the system. At the same time, I want to make a big impact while I’m here. Standing and watching is sometimes neccessarry, but I want to be as active and involved as possible.

One day last week when I was feeling especially useless, I was on the verge of tears. I kept repeating to myself “I can do this…” throughout the day, but I just felt so alone. Some teachers had cancelled class with me, and I felt like I was banished to my desk. It seemed like everyone was too busy to even make eye contact with me. Many ALTs are happy to relax and do their own projects or study Japanese at work, but I get bored after being ignored for hours and hours.

So I asked the Speical Education class if I could join their class. There are only 2 students in the class, Haruna and Yuto, and both students emanate sweetness. I showed them postcards from Santa Barbara and some American money, and they were so curious. We examined every inch of that dollar bill.

Later in the day, they invited me to plant garlic with them. As we walked to the school garden, Haruna took my hand. It almost made me cry; it was like she could sense that I was having a bad day, and wanted to help. Despite her trouble with reading and writing, she has a deep emotional intelligence that sets her apart from other students.

All in all, my experience in Japan is quite amazing. I’m learning something every second. School is both challenging and fulfilling. Outside of work I have many friends, both foreigners and Japanese. I play basketball, indoor soccer, and ultimate frisbee with other ALTs. I joined a gym, make green smoothies daily, and am healthier than I’ve ever been. Sometimes I feel lonely, but overall I’m quite happy.

Thanks for reading. If anyone has any advice about teaching, or anything else, please contact me.

I take lots of photos at grocery stores.

This is my friend Miki! I go to restaraunts with her because she can read the menu! (I cant.) We are doing language exchange: I teach her English, and she teaches me Japanese!

I’m obsessed with this miso r

This is team Brazil. I was in a soccer tournament last weekend. Go team!

My typical breakfast! Green smoothie (broccoli, spinach, cucumber, banana, avocado, water) topped with walnuts, apple slices, and bananas

I’m sitting next to my friend Mamiko!

This is what $30 USD gets you at the grocery store: greens, salmon, wine, lemon juice, random vegetables, etc.

Curry with new friends! Eva and Barry are from Georgia

I had a traditional Japanese breakfast with Dana and Miki

One of my students is in an English speech contest. When I was helping him, I thought of comparing music to words. It must have worked, because my student won 2nd place out of 60 kids!

I bring my own lunch to school. I eat fish but not meat; it’s called a pescatarian!

Chalk flowers that someone drew at my school!