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Published: June 26th 2008
shima795
junior high school students making EM ballsThe countdown has begun. It is officially only one more month until I leave my Yuge home. I’ve started to get schmaltzy about everything these days, thinking it may be the “last time.” Seriously…I need to pull myself together. I even get teary-eyed if I see a commercial I like on TV thinking “this might be the last time I see this commercial!” or if I buy some dish detergent at the supermarket thinking “this might be the last time I every buy another bottle of dish detergent here!” Yes, it’s a little out of control. But, I’m not the only person tearing up.
All of my students, for the most part, are in the dark about me leaving in a month. Most of them probably won’t know until maybe a week before I leave. But, the other day I was at the elementary school teaching my second graders, and I accidentally let it leak out that I am leaving in a month. One of my favorite, most adorable kids came running up to me crying “Don’t leave Jennie-sensei! Don’t leave!” She attached herself to me and wouldn’t let go. Some of her classmates had to pull her off of
shima796
EM balls- stinky, but they make your hands oh-so-soft me. It was so sad. Undeniably, I am going to be very sad to leave my kids too. Some of them have been the most inspiring children to work with (although some have just been a pain in the ass). I’ve probably learned more from them than they have learned from me, but that’s just one of the joys of being a teacher and one of the reasons why I want to be some kind of educator in the future as well.
Classes have been winding down as there are only about three weeks left of this semester. I don’t have as much to do at work in these final weeks and sometimes find myself wondering if I’m good for anything at the schools (especially my junior high school). However, in the past few months I have finally made a breakthrough in my evening adult conversation class. It has been going so well that many of my students come up to me after class to tell me how interesting the class was. I’m so happy, because it’s been one of the most difficult classes to plan as everyone’s level of English is different. I have some students who don’t
shima797
local community guy holding up a blue fuzzy EM ball while explaining the importance of EM to the students speak any English at all and don’t even seem like they are interested in speaking English. Then I have some students who have a pretty advanced knowledge of English. And of course there are many people in between. So, if I make a lesson that is extremely simple so that everyone can participate, the more advanced people will be bored. But, if I make the class more challenging, the beginner people will be totally lost. It’s been something I’ve struggled with for the entire two years I’ve been here.
So, in March during some of the free time I had in the spring break, I devised the master plan. Actually, I didn’t even make the plan in an effort to try to solve the problem of my adult English conversation class. I just wanted to teach them something that I was really interested in and something that I thought they would find interesting too. So, I created a ten-week American music course for them. I chose ten genres of music that originated in America so that we could learn about one each week. The genres more or less go in chronological order and include Native American music, old-time music,
shima798
patty-cake patty-cake blues, gospel, jazz, Cajun/zydeco, country (western), bluegrass, folk, and hip-hop. I made a timeline and a map of the U.S. to show them when and where all of the music styles started. Then each week I make one page with the top half being a paragraph briefly explaining the history, culture, and style of that week’s music genre and the bottom half being pictures of typical instruments or musicians in the genre.
So many times while teaching in Japan I have found that music really bridges cultures and communication gaps, and this was no exception. My students absolutely love learning about a new kind of music every week that they’ve never heard of before. It has been the perfect means to teach them about English, American culture, American music, and American history (which some of my students have asked me to teach them, but which I know little about as a result of sleeping through all my history classes in high school). I write the paragraph briefly describing the music style using grammar that is simple enough that I can explain the meaning to my class easily, but I include some difficult vocabulary for them to look up and
shima799
it's like a sweat shop learn. This way I think I hold the interest of both the beginners and the advanced students. I have everyone read the paragraph aloud so that they are getting reading and speaking practice. There’s not much free speaking involved, but at this point I think that is almost impossible with this class.
Then the second half of class, everyone’s favorite part, is listening to three or four examples of music from the genre we read about that day. I give them copies of the lyrics of the songs so that we can all try to sing along. This week’s class was about folk music, and it was fun because I had the students listen to each song and guess what the song’s message was about from a list including anti-war, politics, society, civil rights, environmental protection, and freedom. Some of my students had heard songs like “This Land is Your Land,” “We Shall Overcome,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but never knew the meaning of the song.
Well, I’ve gone on for long enough about my adult English conversation class. Sorry. I’m just so happy that it is finally working out. And my members have increased lately two.
shima800
carrying the EM balls to the storage hut so that the bacteria can grow for a month During the winter I was lucky to have five people come to class, but now I usually have about fifteen! Anyway, what else? Well, I made EM balls with my junior high students for what might have been the “LAST TIME!” I’m not sure if I have explained the EM ball making that goes on here, but it’s pretty interesting. Pollution is a problem in Japan as in most parts of the world. The Inland Sea of Japan, where I live, is lined with industry from the Honshu mainland to the Shikoku mainland. Luckily, not much industry exists here on the paradise that is Yuge Island, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer from the effects of nearby industry, and it doesn’t mean that many careless people don’t still take their garbage down to the sea to dump. In order to teach the children of Yuge the importance of environmental protection and to try to reverse the years of harmful pollutants that have entered the Inland Sea, children from preschool all the way through high school make EM balls and throw them into the sea.
EM stands for effective microorganisms. It is a good kind of bacteria that
shima801
my mandolin group taking our places at our debut concert eats harmful bacteria. Some soaps and shampoos include the ingredient, and some people even drink the stuff to detox their body. The balls we make from EM look like baseball-size mud balls. We let the bacteria in the balls grow for a month. Then, when the mud balls are blue and furry with mold, we throw them into the sea. Apparently, locals say that the sea environment has been improving and the amount of shell fish has been increasing, but according to the creator of EM, it takes about a hundred years to actually reverse the pollutants already existing. So, the people of Yuge have a long way to go, but it’s an excellent project for the students. Some of my students have participated in English speech contests with speeches about EM balls, and my one student who won the regional contest last year wrote her speech about EM too.
Other than work-related stuff, my mandolin group had our debut concert this month. We have performed many times with a bigger group on a nearby island, but we have never performed just with our small Yuge group. So, we picked all of our favorite songs to play and, amazingly,
shima802
strummity, strum, strum attracted an audience of about sixty people. My Japanese teacher, Noo-sensei, from West Virginia University was visiting me that same day, so she got to see the concert and take some pictures for me too! For half of the songs I played on mandolin, and half of the songs I had solos on fiddle. It was pretty nerve-racking, but to my surprise it turned out great, and people have been coming up to me on the street or in the supermarket ever since and telling me how much they enjoyed it. Yay!
I also went to a shamisen concert in a city about an hour away with a couple members of my mandolin group this month. Other than that I’ve been trying to spend as much time as I can on my favorite beach and with my favorite people before my time is up here. I’ll try to keep it together next time I buy my last bar of soap or see my favorite TV show for the last time, for the times they are a-changing, and there’s no stopping it.
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So many memories!
I really enjoyed reading this as it brought back a lot of memories of when I taught English in South Korea in 1999. Like you I had a lot of troubles with finding an appropriate level for my adult class- I really admire your musical solution! I didn't go on to an educational career but I look back on the whole experience as a very valuable- if occasionally maddening!- time of my life. Best of luck for your future career in education, I've no doubt you'll do very well.