Soccer and Classroom Discussions

Greetings from Tokyo! Things in Japan have been moving right along at a rather quick speed lately. Everyone in the country, as I’m sure the rest of the world, is swept up in the World Cup excitement, vuvuzelas and all. Both Japan and the U.S. have had some great games and last minute victories. I have been keeping up with soccer for the first time in my life and it’s a little better than what I had imagined :) Last week I went out and watched the US game at a local sports bar and met many new American friends living here in Tokyo to cheer with. Then the next night I was invited to go to the Tokyo Dome with some friends, and about 20,000 other people to watch Japan play the Netherlands. Both games were exciting even though they did not end in the most desirable way. The World Cup and its crazy hours have kept me awake at night to watch 3:30 a.m. matches, but hey it only happens every 4 years, right? Nothing a good cup of coffee or a Red Bull can’t fix!



In the last entry I described to everyone where I was teaching. I feel as though that entry was a little late because as I am typing this entry I only have 3 weeks left until summer vacation, yay! Teaching has certainly been challenging and time consuming for me. I had the new teacher energy, and signed up to teach quite possibly too many hours a week after all that’s why I’m here, right? My teaching hours usually are from 10am to about 11pm so the days are quite long. The classes, however, have proven themselves to be very interesting. I can have a lesson plan ready to go and know precisely what I’m going to be talking about and what lesson we will be studying, and I walk in the classroom and everything changes. My adult morning classes are two hours, and at the beginning we usually begin by talking about our weeks and just catching up with one another. It provides the students a chance to start thinking in English since for most of them this is probably the only time they actually use their English. The adult classes are very interesting. Students often come in with topics they want to talk about and then my plans go right out the window. Last week I had two such occasions rise up in my adult classes and one with a student at Katerina, all proved to be fantastic conversations!

I have been feeling quite intellectually stifled in Japan lately and haven’t felt that I can have an intellectual conversation with any of the students, which can prove to be quite frustrating. However the girls at Katerina are really making some great progress. Last week in one of my classes we talked about Russia’s political problems and their government’s deconstruction during and after the Cold War, the potential for decentralized political power in Japan, their budgetary concerns as well as the need to shed some of their traditional views, it was a really interesting conversation much better than what I had planned for the lesson!

Another instance arose in one of my adult classes; we talked about social advocacy, health care and the differences between Japan and the United States and then touched on the homeless population and the problems Tokyo faces, amazing huh? Then the same class the next week I had a student point blank ask me what the point of religion was. The atmosphere where I teach is very loose so we can talk about religion very freely, there are no restrictions. After the student asked this question it opened a great dialogue between the class on religion on why we feel it’s important and how it affects our lives. I had a chance to share some of my beliefs with everyone, but the truly amazing moment came when one student started to go on “the attack” about Christians and instead of me responding with a comment or defending my religion I asked if anyone in the class had anything to say. There are a few Christians in there, and a few non-Christians ALL whom defended the Christian religion…it was a really astounding class. Not everyone we teach is interested in Christianity, and not all the students who are interested will ever convert…but there are those students who are very interested and are asking all the questions which makes this job so enjoyable. They may only be baby steps…but steps none the less.

Teaching has been a pleasurable experience some days and quite daunting other days. Either way, I’m learning a lot and I hope my students are as well. Even with all this said I am still counting down the teaching days until my summer vacation starts (12 days!) and looking forward to reuniting with friends and having some personal time to recharge and reflect on my time here so far. It hass been just about 9 months since I arrived in Japan and sometimes that seems like a short period, and yet in many ways it seems as though I’ve been here for a long time and have had so many experiences already. I have also decided to finally post pictures of where I am living since many people continue to ask me. This is the apartment I moved into during March and where I will remain for the duration of my stay in Japan.










God Bless everyone and I hope summer in the States is going well!

Welcome to Summer!

For most people reading this blog (those in America anyways) summer and summer break is in full swing, in Tokyo things are a little different. The school year here started in April therefore I am still in full teaching mode. Our summer vacation starts around July 17th and ends in the middle of September, although some schools in Tokyo do not resume again until October. This makes teaching a bit strange during September and once I explain where I work, you’ll understand why.

I began teaching the beginning of April, and realized I haven’t had a blog entry since then so I will attempt to catch everyone up on where I’ve been working and what I’ve been up to these past two months. For starters, since I moved to the Bunkyo-ku Ward (文京区) I have been attending a new church called Koishikawa Church (小石川 教会). This congregation is much different from my last one. The church building itself is quite a bit bigger and in my mind resembles more of a Western style church with stain glass windows and a pulpit. The congregation is also composed of a large deaf community and therefore the service is conducted at a slower speed, so the sign language interpreter can keep up. The service is also shown on an overheard projector with everything written out so the deaf members can follow along as well. The congregation is quite accepting and accommodating to those who are different, and this consequently helps me understand and follow along a lot better myself!

I am currently working at two different locations; the first site is the Hongo Student Center (本郷学生センター). I work there Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays teaching several different classes. I have two beginner classes, two intermediate classes, and three children's classes. The beginner and intermediate classes are composed of mainly adult students. The beginner classes tend to be older women's classes and the intermediate classes tend to be graduate students from Tokyo University, which is located across the street from our center. These classes are very enjoyable to teach because having older students means that conversations flow much easier, and there are many things to talk about. The children's classes are team teached by me, Matthew Linden (J3), and Eric Anspach-Hanson (longterm ELCA missionary). Children's classes are new as of this April, but so far have been a huge success. We teach children from ages 3 to 6 years old. It’s amazing to watch their progress, and quite rewarding for myself and the others teachers as well.

The second site I work at is the Katerina Dormitory (カテリーナ). I teach at this location on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights due to the girl’s regular school schedule. Katerina is a girl's dormitory located next door to the Koishikawa Church. High school and college aged girl's live here while they are attending school in Tokyo. I teach small group and private lessons there each week. Currently I have 19 students, which is a lot of time considering most girls have private one-on-one lessons for an hour. This assignment is really rewarding because due to the small classroom size we can really talk about anything the girls want, which makes individualized lesson planning a lot of fun. The girls get a lot of focus which has allowed for some interesting conversations to come up about life in Japan, different cultures and we've even talked quite a bit about religion!

So I hope I’ve answered your questions about “What has Dana been up to lately?” She’s been teaching! I hope this gives you a better insight to the locations I’m teaching in, if you have any other questions please feel free to post! I’ll try to write another entry about daily life soon!