A glimpse into your ALT life

So last post, I said I would do a post a week here. But I’ve decided I want to keep this blog kind of focused on JET/Japan/Teaching English (also I’m far too much of a procrastinator to write a post a week).

Anyways, a friend just introduced me to an awesome JET-related comic called “Life After the BOE“. It covers some of the more, well, irritating aspects of being an JET in Japan, as well as the things they don’t manage to tell you during the 3-day Tokyo Orientations. For example:

It’s a fun, well drawn comic that definitely speaks the truth. I encourage all current, future, and former ALTs to check it out.

10 random things I miss about Japan

There are many things about Japan that’s bound to get on the nerves of anyone who has lived there for an extended amount of time. After being home for a while, I think about how happy I am that I won’t suffer through another winter with no central heating, or be referred to as “American Sized”, or have to deal with the nuances of communicating (which I found was not so much “reading between the lines” as it was “reading minds”). But for every one thing I don’t miss about Japan, there probably three things that I do miss. Naturally I miss my town, my friends, and my students, but there’s also countless “little things” that I miss about Japan. Here is a list of a handful of those things, in no particular order.

The diplomacy of Janken (rock-paper-scissors): In elementary and junior high school, there are few conflicts that can’t be resolved with a round of janken. There’s an extra jelly dessert? Janken. Who won that last karuta card? Janken. No one wants to volunteer to present first? Janken. The loser may groan about it, but no one ever demands a rematch. The word of Janken is final!

Combini: Oh how I miss these beacons of light, a place where I could pay my bills and buy my onigiri, where I could stop in for pudding at 12 pm or 12 am. Where I could pay for a bottle of water with an 10,000 yen (roughly $100) bill and the clerk wouldn’t even blink. I’ll always remember the friendly chime and the “Irashaimase” of my local Family Mart.

Saitama Mascot, Kobaton

The Cuteness: How could I not love a place where everything has a mascot? Where no matter the location, there’s a gift shop with charms of Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma, AND Doraemon dressed like local fruits and flowers. Where my school lunch milk carton has a picture of Kobaton conducting a train or having a picnic. Frankly, everything without a smiley face is just boring now.

Meeting people from around the world: In my hometown in Colorado, meeting someone from east of the Mississippi river is about as “international” as it gets. So you can imagine my wide-eyed delight when I first karaoke’d with a group of Australians, or went to an onsen with a German, or danced at a club with a South African. Now it seems normal to go out with a Brit, an Aussie, and a Japanese person and then meet someone who’s Spanish but grew up in South America, and is stopping over in Japan on their way to Thailand.

Rated PG13 for language

My students’ English mistakes: Sometimes when I’d grade my student’s journals and tests, I worried that they haven’t learned any English at all. But usually the worry was replaced by delight as I read things like “I was in the blue grope.” and “I took part in an event like a cowboy.” Months are especially fun, “Jury” for July, “Nobender” for November. However, I still have no idea what month “Juniary” is supposed to be.

Kotatsu: While heating during the winter in Japan leaves quite a bit to be desired, kotatsu is completely awesome and something I wish I had back home. When the cold would set in around December, I’d throw the quilt over the table and tried to have everything I needed within arms-reach because I wouldn’t leave until April.

Being a semi-celebrity: What can I say? I enjoy it when my kids exclaim “Your eyes are blue!”, or marvel at my curly hair, or ask for my signature on their notebooks. It’s also fun to hear “Ro-ren-sensei, hello!” as I ride my bike around town. Of course, there are two sides to this coin, such as being spotted talking a guy friend and being asked, “Was that your boyfriend?” at school the next day. Or a student forgetting my name and referring to me as “gaikokujin”. Despite this, I’ll be sad not being so “exotic” when I return home.

Seriously, this is like a porno shop to me

Stationary: Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve always loved shopping for school supplies, and Japan is a stationary junky’s dreamland. Even relatively small stores have pens that come in 17 different widths and an aisle devoted to stationary paper. There also all the wonderful stickers, notebooks, and file folders that have any animal, character, or famous landmark you can imagine on it. I’ll especially miss the awesome pop-up, foil embossed, and die-cut greeting cards.

Souvenir snacks: I think most of us think of “souvenirs” as tacky little trinkets we give to friends who probably will put it in a box and never look upon it again. But in Japan, the word for souvenir, “o-miyage”, also means little individually wrapped treats. Every little town has them in all shapes and flavors. They can be . . . interesting, like say a sembei with a slice of octopus baked in, but it’s a perfect gift for co-workers.

Heading to an ikebana lesson

The General Bizarreness: Can you think of your first “Wow, this place is weird” moment in Japan? Was it when you first encountered a talking toilet? Or watched a variety show about eating? Or saw a little old man using a pink keitai with 17 charms dangling from it? Or learned the latest character all your students are obsessed with is a bowl of rice with a face called “Gohan-chan”? I miss these nearly daily encounters with the lovable weirdness that is Japan.

Tips for the JET application: Part 2

A continuation of my tips to JET applicants.

Tip 3, You have more international experience than you think: On the application, there’s several sections were you fill in your teaching, international/inter-cultural, and Japanese experience. Do you best to write down something, anything in these sections. You might have a lot of experience in one area, but writing down 10 things in the international experience section isn’t going to make up for writing nothing in teaching or Japanese experience sections.

The first time I applied, I had nothing in the “Teaching” section, but the second time I put down that I volunteered with ESL students (I only did it for a month) and was a lab monitor for three semesters (I determined that talking people through computer and printer trouble every time I monitored qualified as “tutoring”). It might have just been the thing that got me an interview that second time.

For those worried about lack of international experience, you can list pretty much any time you’ve stepped foot outside your country as international experience. If you’ve barely left your home town, try to think of anything cultural you’ve done. Did you host an exchange student? Take part in an international fair at your university or in your town? Attend French club regularly, or even semi-regularly? Write it all down.

Don’t worry if your “international experience” isn’t related to Japan at all. As I wrote in the JET FAQs, international experience is going to show you’re adaptable to different cultures, which is arguably the thing JET wants the most from a participant.

By the way, if you have some related event planned and it’s happening after the app due date but before the interview dates (like an int’l fair in December, or a trip abroad over the holidays) I’d go ahead and write it down since it will be applicable come interview time.

Tip 4, Statement of Purpose; Ask not what JET can do for you: All you really need to do in this 2-page double-spaced essay is talk about your experience and why you’ll make a good JET. Sounds easy in theory, but in practice this is probably the most stressful part of the application. And I did it twice. Here are some quick tips:

- Don’t talk about your love of Japanese pop culture: If you have some nice story about how you meet a Japanese exchange student who liked the same anime as you and that lead to a lasting friendship, put it in. Otherwise it’s best to just avoid mentioning Anime, Manga, Visual Kei, whatever. Some might say that if an anime is what got you genuinely interested in Japan, you can mention it, but the JET app reviewers already know Anime/Manga is most people’s first encounter with Japanese culture.

- Ditch the flowery language: This isn’t an Ivy League Dissertation, it’s an essay for a job where you’ll stand front of 14-year-olds and try to get them to pronounce “month” so it doesn’t sound like “mouse”. Your SoP should show you can communicate well, so keep your writing clear and concise.

- It’s about them, not you: Of course you should talk about your qualifications and what you hope to gain from being on JET, but don’t forget to talk about what you can do for them. When you’re done with your first draft, go through and see if you can’t eliminate a few I/Me/My’s. Also check the “what I’ll gain” verse “What JET will gain” balance. Do you have a whole paragraph about what you want to gain from JET but only one or two sentences about what you’ll do for JET? Try to even that out

- Get someone to proof-read it: This should go without saying (you should get someone to proof-read your whole application, actually). Get a couple opinions; I recommend you ask someone who doesn’t have anything to do with JET or Japan just so you can get an outside perspective. If you get two or more opinions, you’ll probably get conflicting advice, so that’s where your good judgement has to come in.

- (2nd time applicants) Don’t completely scrap last year’s SoP: If this is your 2nd or even 3rd time applying, you’ve already put a lot of work into an SoP, so why start from scratch? Dig out that old SoP and read through it. Cross out the weak parts and circle any passage, sentence or even just phrases you feel are still strong. See if you can’t incorporate that into your new essay. Of course re-reading your old SoP might just reaffirm you want to write a completely new essay, and that’s fine too.

Tip 5, Chillax: Hey, I was there (twice): reading and re-reading my application, revising my essay, triple checking that I had everything in the right order. Really what I needed to do was relax, take a break for a day or two from the app and do other things. You don’t get bonus points for sending in your application early, so take your time. Print out the check list and maybe have a friend go through the papers with you, making sure everything is there.

Once you send it in, it’s out of your hands. Don’t re-read your SoP because you’re likely to find a typo which will just cause you stress. Don’t second-guess your placement requests or the way you worded your international experience. Really, just try to forget about the whole thing until January.

And so ends my tips (for now). As I said before, I don’t mind answering any questions, so please comment.

Tips for the JET application: Part 1

It’s October, which means the application for the 2011 JET Program will appear, and hundreds will start crawling the internet looking for tips and tricks to making their application stand out. As someone who went through the application twice, I thought I’d offer some word of wisdom.

Please keep in mind that I’m not any kind of JET insider and don’t have any secret info about the application process. I can only base this on my personal experience and stories I’ve heard from fellow JETs.

Tip 1, Get your sh!t together: The JET website already has a list of documents they want you to send with the application. Get going on this now, especially transcripts from study abroad (if you did). If you haven’t graduated yet, you’ll need some sort of “intent to graduate” form. My university told me to print out some BS thing online, and though I have no idea if that cost me an interview my first time applying, it probably didn’t help. Tell them you need a letter on university letterhead with a seal or signature from the registrar.

Tip 2, Your placement requests don’t matter (until they do): I’ve met plenty of people whose requests were Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto and still managed to make it on JET, so no, requesting big cities won’t earn your app an automatic trip to the round file. However if you get an interview, it’s very likely you’ll be asked why you picked a particular city or prefecture, so have a good reason for picking that place (or come up with one by interview time). Good reasons are: Did homestay there, hosted a Japanese person from there, your home town has a sister city/state relationship with that city/prefecture, your Japanese significant other is from there (by that I mean spouse, being engaged sometimes doesn’t cut it).

While I don’t think requesting a big city is gonna count against you, you can look at the data yourself (in the JET pamphlet) and see how likely it is you’ll be placed there. There’s 9 JETs in Tokyo (they ain’t in Shinjuku either, most of those JETs are on a tiny islands hundred of kilometers from Tokyo Bay), there’s also only 9 in Kanagawa-ken. Many major cities use private ALTs exclusively, so if you really have your heart set on Yokohama, JETs probably not for you. You might think you’re more likely to get your first choice if you choose a less “popular” prefecture, since not so many will request it. Not necessarily; I had a friend who requested Fukui, then ended up on Shikoku.

It’s just not worth stressing over placements since the Contracting Organization’s preferences (they can request that their JET be a certain gender and nationality) will take precedence over your requests anyway. Some towns always request a JET from a certain place because of sister city relationships, some placements are meant for couples, or for JETs bringing children.

So, pick wherever you want, try to have a good reason for that request, but be open-minded because they’re gonna place you where they place you. Or you can just not write down a placement request at all.

—-

So there are your first couple tips. Come back soon for advice on what to write for international experience, and the dreaded Statement of Purpose, spooky!

I’m more than happy to answer questions, so please leave a comment if you have any!

Blast from the Past

A white concrete building that looks more like a hospital than a school.
A school yard full of kids playing on rusty swing sets and jungle gyms, kicking a ball around on a dirt field.
A classroom with 40 students that gets so frigid in the winter, kerosene gas heaters are brought in. As for the hot humid summer? Open the windows and fan yourself with your notes.

Would you believe this is a typical school in Japan, home of countless electronic and car companies and by all measures one of the most advanced countries in the world?

One of the strangest part of living in Japan is the feeling that I’m not only in another country and culture, but in another time. It’s like the late 50′s early 60′s America that never really existed except in movies and TV shows. People leave their car going when they run into the convenience store for a drink. Many women wear their quintessential “mom-aprons” during all waking hours. Train workers wear white gloves and department store employees wear funny little hats. Phones still have cords, people still hang their laundry, and there’s still cigarette vending machines on every corner. Japan is a strange place.

And then she burst into tears – Teaching Grade School

I love teaching Japanese elementary school for all the reasons I don’t much like teaching junior high school. The elementary kids are excited to see me, they ask me all sorts of questions (mostly in the vein of “what color do you like?”), and when I ask for an answer or for a volunteer, 20 hand go up in the air with a deafening round of “Hai! Hai!”

Most of my uncomfortable moments at junior high come when I’m doing a dialog with students. Just the other day, in a 7th grade class, the teacher asked me to pick a few students and ask them “What (something) do you like?”. I asked a girl “What books do you like?”; she responded “I like…” and then silence for roughly 15 seconds before the teacher told her to sit down. Maybe it didn’t bother her very much, or maybe she was traumatized will hate English for the rest of her life. This is the game of chance I play whenever I have to call on students.

Fortunately, elementary kids aren’t quite so embarrassed when they make a mistake. Or are they? Today I taught 2nd graders, “How are you?” “I’m fine, and you?” “I’m fine, too.” After making them repeat it 20 or so times with a partner, I asked for volunteers to present. At first, I have them present with a partner, then I had them do the dialog with me. One little boy really wanted to do the dialog, but his partner sat shaking her head “no”. I said, “OK, just me and the boy” but for some reason the girl stands up.

Boy: “How are you?”
Girl: “How are you?”
Boy: “No, you say, ‘I’m fine, and you?’”
Me: *trying to get the girl to repeat after me. “I’m fine…”

Suddenly, tears are just streaming down the girl’s face. Oh Lord, what have I done?! I stood with a slightly panicked look on my face as the homeroom teacher walks over and does the dialog in place of the girl. The girl recovered eventually, but I can’t help but feel guilty.

And thus are the occupational hazards of teaching English to 8 year olds.

Months of the year

Spelling was hard for me as a native, so I can’t imagine how difficult it is for my Japanese junior high schoolers. Unfortunately, English spelling is very much taught by rote learning here with no emphasis on phonics or even really basic spelling rules. This is terrible for their English education, but for my personal entertainment, it’s hilarious. Today, the 8th graders had a spelling test, and by far the most entertaining was the months of the year. Here are a few of the misspellings:

• January – Janney, Junwary
• February – Fvrey, Federey, Fevraliy
• March – Mach, Match
• April – Eiprl, Epler, Eiplir, Aplir
• May – is one most kids managed to get, though there were a few “Mai”s
• June – Jnu, Jun
• July – Jaril, Jury
• August – Orgest
• September – Sertanbay
• October – Octorber, Octanbay
• November – Nobender, Noder, Nadeny (wtf?)
• December – Deasnbay, Disember

These are just one class, I’m sure many more await me tomorrow.

There were also many non-month misspelling pearls, such as apoo – apple, tachy – teacher, lunt – lunch, and goil – girl, which gets half points ’cause “goil” is correct in some part of the States.