Please note that the race format is subject to change– for example, we may randomly mix teams.

Use the PDF version if you just want to quickly fill in and print the form for delivery or fax.

The Word document can be saved for emailing, but is a little more cumbersome to fill out because you might push stuff around as you type. However, you should be able to save the Word version and email it to

]]> http://www.sagajet.com/amazing-race-saga-applications-online/feed http://www.sagajet.com/easing-into-the-new-school-year http://www.sagajet.com/easing-into-the-new-school-year#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:09:13 +0000 Jesse http://www.sagajet.com/announcements/easing-into-the-new-school-year/ By now you know that in Japan, the school year starts in April and a few teachers leave at the end of March, with new ones rotating in to replace them.

The holidays are dead if you are not vacationing. Likewise, the first week of school will be a testing time for the students. It might get boring for you. But you should NOT (just) veg out at your desk! Here are some things you can do:

Network with the new teachers.

At this point, if you have not introduced yourself to the new teachers at your school, you should do that. Especially if the teachers are either administration or teachers whom you will be directly working with.

The stock phrase here is “Hajimemashite” and of course your name. If you can say in Japanese “I’m the ALT for xx school” or “I come every week on Tuesdays,” this would be good. The teacher may or may not ask about your history. I don’t give a jiko shoukai to them, though, because I think it’s unwieldy. They can slowly find out about you over the next few months. The last thing you should both do is a “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” to express your desires for a good working relationship.

If I am working with a teacher (for example a JTE or a person who coordinates schedules at the school) I always give them contact information. You can make neat little business cards on the computer during your free time. It’s easy. I got fancy and printed English on one side and JP on the other. It sounds hard, but you don’t really need to know much grammar to make business cards in Japanese! On them I have contact info for my base school (base school JTEs might get keitai email or my home/keitai number for emergency use). I might handwrite my email address and stuff like “kantan nihongo demo ii desu” — you can email me in simple Japanese, as well.

If you don’t have a card, when you are first introducing yourself, that’s cool. Just put it on their desk later, or stop by when they look free.

*I* think it is VERY important to attend the farewell enkai (the last chance you may have to see teachers you’ve worked with all year!) as well as the welcome enkai for new staff. You can not only show that you are NOT an island off on your own, but that you are a nice person. You can also get a feel for what they are like–and how they drink!

Last year, I made a coffee cake to welcome the new teachers. It might be a little over the top, but I wanted to ensure that we got off to a good start and was too cheap to buy omiyage or welcome gifts. Occasionally when the office seems tense or unfriendly and there are no enkai in sight, I find it helpful to bring food to work to share. Last week, one of the leaving senseis thanked me for bringing food the summer before. I had totally forgotten, but evidently, it made an impression on her.

Think Ahead!

If you have more than one school, this is the time to coordinate your schedules. Some ALTs have more freedom in scheduling than others. I am allowed a bit of leniency: I cannot control my outreach schools’ schedules but I can choose my classes at my base school to work around them.

You should have received a big master calendar (ours was in a packet) at one of the meetings over the break. In this calendar, we have the school’s schedule for the year. The important stuff to note is when your school holidays are, when you have to work weekends, and if your school makes everyone take daikyuu (a compensory day off for weekend work), what day that is.

I found that a lot of times, my daikyuu for one school fell on a workday for another. So in essence, I wouldn’t have a “day off”. This year, I am informing my shougakkou of when my base school is not in session so we can pre-schedule make-up days.

If you plan your shougakkou curriculum, this needs to be done now. Some schools plan it, some schools don’t. But I find that at least having a year-plan (even if you don’t have specific vocab words and games worked out) fill give your lessons direction. Sarah Cardenas gave a workshop on elementary teaching and she has great resources for lesson planning. Also, even if you think you are too hip for Genki Richard’s style, his website has great sample curricula.

If you are working from a previous curriculum, consider what worked well and what didn’t. (Too hard, too boring, too useless, whatever.)

In my opinion there are two kinds of curricula: short term and long term.

Short Term

* Also called “1-year”
* Good for ALTs who might not be around much longer.
+ Easier to plan.
+ Reinforces knowledge
- Boring for the kids. Especially if it covers material they had last year.
- Limited in Scope. You can only teach so many topics.
- Doesn’t account for varying interests of different ages.
- Might be hard for the ALT to adapt between grades.

Basically, you teach the same topics across the grades. 1nensei and 6nensei learn the same thing. The ALT needs to rework the lessons to make them easier or harder for kids at different ages…but the theme is the same for everyone. This is good because it requires a minimum of lesson material preparation. I think it’s popular with teachers, but I don’t think it’s very good. It’s incredibly repetitive, which might make your job less fun, and the kids will be turned off if they feel they already learned this. Another big minus is that it limits the topics you can teach in a given year and that the kids learn.

Long Term

* Also called “vertically integrated” or “multi-year”
* Good for ALTs who will think they will be at the same schools for a good while.

+ Interesting for you and for the kids because it doesn’t repeat very much.
+ Wide in scope: you can teach many subjects.
+ Works well for schools with lots of siblings: older sibs can teach their younger brother/sister English, too!
+ Considers the students’ ages and levels.
+ Easier for the ALT to keep track of who was taught what. Lessons don’t have to be modified as much.
- May not offer enough review.
- More involved planning and preparation since (in a given year) you don’t repeat.
+ But pays off the following year(s).
- Can get disrupted. If you schools change or your school changes HOW they teach English.

This is how I teach. I give the 1-2nensei the same topics, 3-4nensei the same topics, 5-6nensei the same topics. That way, the learn certain things at certain points in their elementary school tenures. It also allows you to work on more complex or abstract topics or projects for the older students and use simpler concepts (”hello/goodbye!”) for younger students. MEXT emphasizes the differences in kids’ development, and I think it’s really important, too.* The biggest problem is that if another ALT takes over or your schools change or if the school decides to use their own curriculum or discontinue English education for certain grades, those kids are left out in the cold. But this is a risk you have to take. The benefits are worth it, I think. Your students have a sense of pride in learning stuff their siblings aren’t. You also have more freedom to integrate with the subjects the kids are studying in other classes.

–
*See Resource Materials and Teaching Handbook, p.96 in the 2006 ed.

Work Ahead

I actually find this one the hardest to do: I’m not motivated until I have a deadline looming. But if you are inclined, consider actually working up lesson plans (for shougakkou) ahead of time. Print out flashcards, buy magnets, etc.

For chuugakkou, go through the textbook and try to remember the worksheets and props and activities you used last year. Scrape up these materials and get them organized where you can pull them up when you need them.

I can’t offer advice for high school ALTs, since I have no idea what their work is like. Please comment if you have experience with this!

Also consider extra projects: planning/making English boards, planning a skit, making a mailbox for your kids to write you with, designing fake money or “sticker passports,” writing small quizzes or talks for announcement time or whatever.

Refresh

The other teachers do this in the days before they move the desks in the staffroom: get rid of crap that’s accumulated at your desk: old papers, books you don’t need, post-its, memos, old schedules.

Give everything a dusting.

If you want to reorganize your desk layout (by making a hutch for your laptop, adding a small bookshelf, etc) this is a good time to do it. If you are unhappy that your LAN cable is wonky, now’s the time to swipe a new one!

Don’t Forget About Japanese

If you are taking the CLAIR Japanese course and plan to be gone for Golden Week, you should get an earlier than usual start on the CLAIR test. Remember that you will come back once May is underway, so you will also have less time to complete the final book.

If you are interested in the JLPT, you only have about 6 months at this point to get ready for it. Now is a good time to grab a guide or two and start drilling kanji or whatever.

Fun Stuff

Now that you have the master calendar for the year, you can also figure out when you want to do travel over the next year. This allows you to not get into a rush to get all of your travel plans in at once, to request nenkyuu earlier, and to book flights while they are still cheap. At the very least, get an idea of when you want to take off and how much you will have saved up between vacations.

http://melt-in-japan.blogspot.com/2008/02/rescheduling-deliveries-in-japan.html

also in Hita is the Kyushu factory of Sapporo beer. didn’t go to that one but there is a factory tour!

this was a very pleasant day trip and if you have some time in the next couple weeks why no check it out? i believe the dolls have been out since last week and should continue being displayed until mid-march (hina matsuri is march 3rd).

how to get there:
from fukuoka:
i took the bus from the tenjin bus center. there was a special ticket for the hina matsuri that was 3,200yen (round trip ticket) plus a voucher for free rides on the community buses and a few discounts at places around town (the bus goes to the dolls district, the beer factory, bus center, eki, etc). the buses to/from tenjin run every half hour (or more frequently). it’s a 1 hour 20 minute drive

from saga:
buses to hita leave from tenjin, kurume, or 六ツ門(mutumon?)
so, get yourself there and go :D hita shouldn’t take sooo long so you could definitely work in some lunch/dinner in tenjin before/after you go

once in hita i rented a bike at the tourism center near the eki. they were 200yen for the first hour and 100 yen/hour after that. i guess we didn’t really need the bikes but it was nice riding around the traditional streets. we found a few cool places off the beaten path

links!:
http://www.city.hita.oita.jp/　
Hita City website (japanese)

http://iris.hita.net/~city/ht/hina.htm
weird high school computer class version (engrish)

http://www.japan-hopper.com/2007/03/02_09958.php
travel site with pictures (english)

p.s.–
if you get there around lunch time (like i did), you may stumble across a hamburger shop by the station called “OJ” or something. eat at your own risk. the staff was rude, the hamburgers were really just thin hamburg steaks on buns, and they won’t let you order something off the take-out menu if you plan on eating it in the place (???).

So here is a quick note for those of you looking for the
脱退一時金裁定請求書 (Pension Lump Sum Withdrawal Form):

There is information about this on the CLAIR website, in addition to the GIH (the General Information Handbook that you have no doubt lost by now ;o)
http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/former/pension.html

For those of you looking to get straight to that delicious government form, you’ll find an English/JP version here:
This was also on the CLAIR website: http://www.sia.go.jp/e/pdf/english.pdf

They also provide the form in a few other languages that are popular in Japan, namely, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Indonesian.

I hope this is helpful.

There will be lectures in both English and Japanese on topics such as ancient martial arts techniques, the influence martial arts has on health as well as ancient martial arts of the ryukyu islands. There will also be the chance to try some of these arts yourself. The number of places is limited, so you must apply in advance. The deadline is February 15th. If you’d like any more information, send a mail to me at: markchanner@gmail.com and/or check out this link: http://www.nipponbudokan.or.jp/shinkou/html_1/index5.html

Wondering where to go and what to do during your Golden Week holidays? Why not join the Saga JET Habitat for Humanity 2008 group? Support the global community and build homes for low income earners and their families!

About Habitat for Humanity:

Habitat For Humanity International (HFHI) (generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or simply Habitat) is an international, ecumenical Christian, non-governmental, non-profit organization devoted to building “simple, decent, and affordable” housing. Homes are built using volunteer labor and are sold at no profit, with no interest charged on the mortgage. The organization was founded in 1976 in Americus, Georgia by Millard and Linda Fuller, whose vision grew out of their experiences at Koinonia Farm. The international headquarters located in Atlanta (moved from Americus GA in 2006) serves to support and promote the activities of local, independent affiliate chapters, which initiate and manage all construction, mortages, and homeowner selection.

This past Golden Week, 11 Volunteers from the Saga JET community visited Mongolia, the land of blue skies. We helped to build two homes for two families over 14 days, and visited a local elementary school with school supplies as donations. As a member, I can say with confidence that it was an amazing success and is one of the most fulfilling life experiences I have had!

You can read more about our trip (in Japanese):
http://www.habitatjp.org/gv_report/cat1/1111/

We also have a Facebook group (Habitat for Humanity - Saga JETs 2008), where anyone can join to receive news and updates about upcoming events!

For more information, please visit:

Habitat for Humanity International:
http://www.habitat.org

Habitat for Humanity Japan (in English)
http://www.habitatjp.org/index_e.php

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then you should consider getting a massage to release those weary muscles, help your body’s circulation, and improve your overall well-being.

Yuri Sakaguchi, Spa Director and Therapist at the Heaka Aveda Spa in Tenjin, offers some of the best massages this author has ever had the pleasure to experience.

Yuri has spent several years in Australia and has recently returned to Fukuoka with her husband, whom is also a massage therapist, where she has worked with Heaka Aveda Spa since its opening this spring. Her technique can most easily be described as “Shiatsu Fusion” - using a variety of deep tissue and relaxation methods to achieve the client’s desired state of well being. The final result? A definite sense of improved circulation, well being, and calm, which noticeably lasted throughout the entire weekend. Tension was released and replaced with relaxed muscles and joints. Even your hair will feel relaxed!

Heaka Aveda spa is the only Aveda product and treatment spa in Fukuoka, and all of their treatments are exclusively used with Aveda products. For those not familiar with the Aveda Brand, it would be useful to note that the comapny believes in conducting business in a manner that protects the Earth, conserves resources and does not compromise the ability of future generations to sustain themselves.

Headquartered in the U.S., Aveda has quickly become the forerunner of Eco-friendly Haircare and Skincare products, offering their customers unique blends of organically grown floral and plant extracts and oils that have been scientifically proven to improve your hair’s texture and strength, in addition to your skin’s complexion and radiance. Eco-conscious spa owners have taken notice of Aveda’s unique branding image and advanced techniques and since early 2000, Aveda spas have been spreading across the world and just recently, to Fukuoka. This author says that it’s about time!

You can easily walk into the front of the house and purchase any product from Aveda’s line, or walk in and make an appointment for either a hair or spa treatment with one of Heaka’s friendly staff. Be warned that most of the staff do not speak English, so it is helpful to know your katakana in order to point to the services that you would like. Luckily, Yuri is very proficient in English, so you can ask to speak with her directly if you need assistance.

For a 30-minute (plus) body treatment, the cost is competitive at 6,300 yen. Since your head will be massaged as well, a bonus hair set and style is provided at the end of the treatment, a value of 1,000 yen! Sa-bi-su in Japan at its best!

To make an appointment, please contact:

Yuri Sakaguchi, Spa Director/Therapist
Heaka Aveda Fukuoka
BM bldg. 2F 1-12-66 Daimyo Chuo-ku Fukuoka
092.720.5220
www.aveda-heaka.com

Hours of Operation:
Weekdays: 11am-9pm
Weekends: 10am-8pm