An Upsetting Number of Games: Karuta

The third in our series of game tutorials for English teachers. Link.

An Upsetting Number of Games: The Line Game

Alright, here's the next game tutorial. This time, it's one of the simplest games in the book: the line game.

Enjoy!

An Upsetting Number of Games: Tutorial

Summer has started, which means two things for the ALT. First, we're gonna have a metric fuckton of free time to fritter away. Second, it means the old ALTs are leaving and the new ones are coming in.

With these two things in mind, I've decided to fritter away my time by working on some game tutorials for new ALTs teaching at elementary schools. Most of this information will be old news to ALTs with a year under their belt, but you might find a few variants you haven't seen yet.

Feel free to use, modify, and share. If there's anything that's unclear or a variant you've been using, let me know about it.

First, the tutorial. Here's a link for a zipped version on Google docs.

Blogger's not letting me upload all of the images here, so I'll just put up my favorite image:

Japanglish Fantasy League Vocabulary #5

Japanese Dinosaur - n. 1). A Japanese woman who holds her handbag like the mighty Tyrant Lizard:

(I couldn't find a good picture, but this should give you the general idea)

2). The 45-year-old woman you picked up at Pure¹ last night.

See Also: Velociraptor, Louis Vuitton

1Pure - n. 1). An infamous foreigner pick-up nightclub.
2). A wretched hive of villany and English teachers.

Japanglish Fantasy League Vocabulary #3

J-Kaiwa - n. 1). A Japanese language conversation class, where you learn the passive verb form, and that your Japanese will never be as good as that of a 19-year-old Malaysian immigrant worker.
2). The serpent of English education swallowing its own tail.
3). What you will blow off for karaoke.

See also: Eikaiwa, Washed-Up Japanese Major, Ouroboros

Why we need this word: Because if you corrupt your English with words like this, it covers up the fact that your Japanese is not getting any better. Because you are too lazy to say "Japanese language conversation class."

I dub thee Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, beater of ass.

Among other lies I have told innocent school children: I speak five languages, my next-door neighbors are (on the right) Jack Bauer and (on the left), Obama, and I secretly work for the CIA. And they find all of this more credible than my ability to use chopsticks.


The next step is, of course, the introduction of Martian Law.


Just as Nintendo has forever ruined the name "Mario" for Italians who are not, in fact, overweight plumbers, they have ruined "Yoshi" for Japanese people who are not giant dinosaurs with sticky, retractable tongues.

No Dude, I Speak Spanish

Our model lesson plan actually went quite well. The topic was "What's your dream job?" and the most interesting student response was definitely "King of Games Card Shop Owner."

Big Voice! Big Smile!

Overpaid: strong yen, hired straight out of college, able to afford pretty much everything I actually want.

Underpaid; seven-year-olds trying to stick their fingers up my butt.

まわして！まわして！

One of the first things they told us about teaching English in elementary schools is that you're not actually supposed to be teaching English. You're supposed to convince the kids that learning English isn't extremely difficult and miserable, it's fun. So we practice some pronunciation, play games, color pictures, and so on.

Of course, as soon as these kids get to Junior High, English class will become extremely difficult and miserable, mostly because the Elementary classes do nothing to prepare the students for things like, you know, reading and writing, because of all the games and whatnot.

At any rate, I'm not sure if my kids think English is fun, but they definitely think their teacher is hilarious, what with all the piggyback rides and kung-fu battles and noogies and such.


Update on comics: So my scanner and printer are cooperating again, but my computer refuses to accept that Photoshop is a program and not some sort of hideous computer version of super-aids. The basic result is that comics will go up, but they will be of even less quality than usual. So yeah.

Temptation, Unresisted

"I'm not a gaijin! I'm an English-teaching alien!"

I Say "Tomato," You Say "あぁ、ええと..."

For an update about the comic, scroll down to the bottom.

In JET, we do what's called "Team Teaching." This means that a native English speaker will teach alongside a Japanese English teacher, because the English speaker has no teaching experience and can't communicate with the students in their native language and the Japanese teacher's pronunciation and understanding of the little intricacies of word usage may not be...perfect. Which, in theory, is a pretty good setup.

The problem is, I'm an Elementary School ALT. And the Japanese Ministry of Education decided that all homeroom teachers in Elementary schools should start teaching English, even though they already teach approximately 50 other subjects, are expected to be more involved in their student's upbringing than the parents, and have little to no experience with English.

Which can be just a touch annoying when you're trying to make lesson plans.

I'm halfway decent at Japanese overall, but my weakest area is definitely the spoken language. When forming a sentence beyond the difficulty level of "I like dogs!", I usually end up spouting a slew of incomprehensible gibberish. The worst part is, my listening skills are good enough that I can actively realize how little sense I make in real time.

And even this wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't in the Kansai region. Trying to understand the Kansai dialect is like trying to figure out a fast-talking hillbilly's opinion on immigration reform, while said hillbilly is undergoing a severe stroke. やねん？

I have found away around the first problem though. No matter how confusing my Japanese may be to the other teachers, it's infinitely less terrifying than the alternative: English. After rattling off a few sentences in the mother tongue, they're more than happy to put up with my Japanese. Guess they prefer I be the one who sounds like an idiot?

COMIC UPDATE:

Comics are delayed until I get a scanner. On the bright side, there are plenty of new ones to go up once that condition is met.

Pffff!

Actually, I'm pretty excited about teaching.

Click on the image to see its full, glorious resolution.

"The Ex-Exchange Student's Dilema"

Dedicated to Rich.