What do you get if you have a room full of ALTS?
Today we had the Senior High School ALT Meeting at the Education Center in Niigata. This was the meeting that was scheduled to take place in Nagaoka on Oct 25th, but that was before the earthquake struck on the 23rd.
I got a lift with Debs to the meeting and we took the expressway from Kawaguchi to Niigata-nishi. Route 117 is almost repaired. One area of mountain where the landslide took away the tarmac has been rebuilt and the road relaid. The second area is on it's way to being complete soon. When we passed Ojiya on teh expressway we could see, in the daylight, more fo the damage the earthquake had caused. Several large houses had been skewed to one side, currently supported by poles so they don't come crashing down at anytime. I'm sure they will eventually be demolished. We did see the construction of some temporary housing. As I mentioned before, lots of people are still living in cars or tents and with the snow on it's way a better shelter will be needed. Hopefully, enough temporary housing will be constructed in time.
The meeting itself was quite interesting. We had a talk from one of the Board of Education about his thoughts on the importance of teaching English. Then we had a session for the Chuetsu ALTs to discuss the earthquake and any problems we might be having. I mentioned how I don't feel totally safe in my flat and how best to approach my supervisor about it.
We had lunch then exchanged activities (each ALT had brought 40 copies of an activity that worked well for them in the classroom, one copy for each other ALT). Jessica Loh then showed us a video of one of her team-teaching lessons. This was the best part of teh meeting for me. Jessica's lesson was really similar to one fo my lessons in Tsunan, from the to behaviour of kids to the amount of stuff you can do in a lesson. I had been worrying a fair bit about the content of my lessons, especially when I read in the handbook that I should "encourage debate between the students". Everytime I read this goal, I think "but my students don't have the English ability to debate, let alone have their own opinions to debate with".
We had a break and then a session for the first years to talk about problems we're having with teaching. It's strange because I was in a group with Debs and Annie, who I talk to all the time, but it was the first serious discussion we'd had about our jobs.
After the meeting, Debs led a Martin-guided convoy to Yamaya, the foreign food shop. Our convey was four cars long, three of which were filled entirely with Americans. They want to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow and they were trying to hunt down some cranberry sauce and other Amercan foods for their Thanksgiving dinner. Debs and I left them at Yamaya whilst we went on to Furamachi to find a winter coat for me and a birthday present for Annie (it's her birthday tomorrow too).
Debs left Niigata with Annie's present but I couldn't find a winter coat. Furamachi only has department tores that sell wintercoats in the region of £250 to £800. A bit too pricey for my liking. I wait til I find a big Uniqlo or Muji. I did find rolled oats in another foreign food store, so I'm looking forward to porridge for brekkie tomorrow.
On the way back we discussed the winter blues thing again. We decided that a disrupted hibernation routine wasn't the only thing making this year worse. We could also be feeling the affects of culture shock but attributing it to winter blues. Another factor could be delayed shock from the earthquake. I guess we tried to ignore what had happened and tried to get on as normal after the earthquake but with reminders such as Ojiya and the aftershocks, the earthquake has been impossible to ignore. So what do we do? How do we get rid of these blues? Maybe Prodigy at the weekend will help; it's going to be a massive way to boost seratonin so maybe it will.
I got a lift with Debs to the meeting and we took the expressway from Kawaguchi to Niigata-nishi. Route 117 is almost repaired. One area of mountain where the landslide took away the tarmac has been rebuilt and the road relaid. The second area is on it's way to being complete soon. When we passed Ojiya on teh expressway we could see, in the daylight, more fo the damage the earthquake had caused. Several large houses had been skewed to one side, currently supported by poles so they don't come crashing down at anytime. I'm sure they will eventually be demolished. We did see the construction of some temporary housing. As I mentioned before, lots of people are still living in cars or tents and with the snow on it's way a better shelter will be needed. Hopefully, enough temporary housing will be constructed in time.
The meeting itself was quite interesting. We had a talk from one of the Board of Education about his thoughts on the importance of teaching English. Then we had a session for the Chuetsu ALTs to discuss the earthquake and any problems we might be having. I mentioned how I don't feel totally safe in my flat and how best to approach my supervisor about it.
We had lunch then exchanged activities (each ALT had brought 40 copies of an activity that worked well for them in the classroom, one copy for each other ALT). Jessica Loh then showed us a video of one of her team-teaching lessons. This was the best part of teh meeting for me. Jessica's lesson was really similar to one fo my lessons in Tsunan, from the to behaviour of kids to the amount of stuff you can do in a lesson. I had been worrying a fair bit about the content of my lessons, especially when I read in the handbook that I should "encourage debate between the students". Everytime I read this goal, I think "but my students don't have the English ability to debate, let alone have their own opinions to debate with".
We had a break and then a session for the first years to talk about problems we're having with teaching. It's strange because I was in a group with Debs and Annie, who I talk to all the time, but it was the first serious discussion we'd had about our jobs.
After the meeting, Debs led a Martin-guided convoy to Yamaya, the foreign food shop. Our convey was four cars long, three of which were filled entirely with Americans. They want to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow and they were trying to hunt down some cranberry sauce and other Amercan foods for their Thanksgiving dinner. Debs and I left them at Yamaya whilst we went on to Furamachi to find a winter coat for me and a birthday present for Annie (it's her birthday tomorrow too).
Debs left Niigata with Annie's present but I couldn't find a winter coat. Furamachi only has department tores that sell wintercoats in the region of £250 to £800. A bit too pricey for my liking. I wait til I find a big Uniqlo or Muji. I did find rolled oats in another foreign food store, so I'm looking forward to porridge for brekkie tomorrow.
On the way back we discussed the winter blues thing again. We decided that a disrupted hibernation routine wasn't the only thing making this year worse. We could also be feeling the affects of culture shock but attributing it to winter blues. Another factor could be delayed shock from the earthquake. I guess we tried to ignore what had happened and tried to get on as normal after the earthquake but with reminders such as Ojiya and the aftershocks, the earthquake has been impossible to ignore. So what do we do? How do we get rid of these blues? Maybe Prodigy at the weekend will help; it's going to be a massive way to boost seratonin so maybe it will.
Niigata JET Blogs
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