English Teaching in Japan

English Teaching in Japan 70-Australian Adventure

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:38:56 PDT

In this episode I show a video I made from our 2 week trip to Australia.

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Wise Words Wednesday-Lead the Way

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:44:34 PDT

If your actions inspire others to dream more,
learn more, do more and become more,
you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams

Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Harold R. McAlindon

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

English Teaching in Japan 69-What's in the Pipeline

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:08:38 PDT

In this episode I talk about what I will be doing in the next few weeks and projects that I have in the pipeline.

If you are coming to Japan on the 2009 JET Program please take a look at the JET Program section on the Forum and let us know where you have been placed.

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Wise Words Wednesday-Plant, Learn, Encourage

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:13:25 PDT

It's not what is poured into a student that counts, but what is planted.

-Linda Conway

The teachers who get "burned out" are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times.

-Frank Smith

Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.

-Anatole France

English Teaching in Japan 68-School Festival Video

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:25:50 PDT

In this episode I show a video of our school festival.

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English Teaching in Japan 67-After Bunkasai

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:40:38 PDT

In this episode I talk about 文化祭 bunkasai and show another clip from our class movie.

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Wise Words Wednesday-Teaching and Teachers

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:41:27 PDT

"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers."

-Josef Albers

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth."

-Dan Rather

A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.

-Author Unknown

English Teaching in Japan 66-Short and Sweet

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:26:25 PDT

In this episode I show another clip from the movie my students are working on.

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English Teaching in Japan 65-Update and Moive

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:30:56 PDT

In this episode I talk about the new school year and show a clip of a movie my students and I are working on for our 文化祭 bunkasai.

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English Teaching in Japan 64-JET Program Interview

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:27:19 PST

In this episode I talk about what's been happening around school and about the JET Program Interview.

Take a look at the JET Program section on the Forum.

Also take a listen to English Teaching in Japan Episode 51 where I interview my friend Sean who used to do interviews for JETs in New Zealand.

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Happy Healthy New Year!

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:24:46 PST

Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone who follows the show. I hope we all have the healthiest, wealthiest, happiest, and most peaceful year of our lives. I'll be posting some new episodes of English Teaching in Japan very soon.

The video below has nothing to do with the new year, but if you live in a cold place it might warm you up a little.

I shot this for my students when I was back home in '07. I did a series of videos to give them a taste of my life back in the States and I also used them for class. Students had to make comments, ask questions, and answer questions about the videos as part of their summer homework.

If you're coming to Japan to teach get out and start making your own videos to use in your classes.

English Teaching in Japan 63

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:24:43 PST

In this episode I talk about all the things I've been doing since the last episode 3 months ago. University Exams, Skit Contest, Trip to London, and the Christmas Party.

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English Teaching in Japan 62-Different but the Same

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:12:53 PDT

A new season of English Teaching in Japan has begun. In this episode I talk with two exchange students from Australia that remind me a lot of two other exchange students that I had the pleasure of meeting a few years back.

Hayley and Nathan

Gocke and Steven

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Wise Words Wednesday-Experience it Yourself

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:08:51 PDT

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

-Mark Twain

With all the new teachers coming over on the JET and other programs, I hope they and their students will learn and grow much from their experiences.

English Teaching in Japan 61-Welcome New JETs

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:10:53 PDT

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Teaching in Japan Now and Then

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:44:14 PDT

I have been teaching for three hours in the Middle School,
and teaching Japanese boys turns out to be a much more agreeable task than I had imagined. Each class has been so well prepared for me beforehand by Nishida that my utter ignorance of Japanese makes no difficulty in regard to teaching: moreover, although the lads cannot understand my words always when I speak, they can understand whatever I write upon the blackboard with chalk. Most of them have already been studying English from childhood, with Japanese teachers. All are wonderfully docile' and patient. According to old custom, when the teacher enters, the whole class rises and bows to him. He returns the bow, and calls the roll.

Nishida is only too kind. He helps me in every way he possibly can, and is constantly regretting that he cannot help me more. There are, of course, some difficulties to overcome. For instance, it will take me a very, very long time to learn the names of the boys--most of which names I cannot even pronounce, with the class-roll before me. And although the names of the different classes have been painted upon the doors of their respective rooms in English letters, for the benefit of the foreign teacher, it will take me some weeks at least to become quite familiar with them. For the time being Nishida always guides me to the rooms. He also shows me the way, through long corridors, to the Normal School, and introduces me to the teacher Nakayama who is to act there as my guide.

I have been engaged to teach only four times a week at the Normal School; but I am furnished there also with a handsome desk in the teachers' apartment, and am made to feel at home almost immediately. Nakayama shows me everything of interest in the building before introducing me to my future pupils. The introduction is pleasant and novel as a school experience. I am conducted along a corridor, and ushered into a large luminous whitewashed room full of young men in dark blue military uniform. Each sits at a very small desk, sup-ported by a single leg, with three feet. At the end of the room is a platform with a high desk and a chair for the teacher. As I take my place at the desk, a voice rings out in English: 'Stand up!' And all rise with a springy movement as if moved by machinery. 'Bow down!' the same voice again commands--the voice of a young student wearing a captain's stripes upon his sleeve; and all salute me. I bow in return; we take our seats; and the lesson begins.

This was written by Lafcadio Hearn (an ALT) in his book Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan around 1894. One hundred and fourteen years later things aren't so different for a new English teachers in Japan.

Guzen Media Japan-Tanabata 七夕

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:38:30 PDT

Here is a video that I posted on my other show Guzen Media Japan . When you come to Japan to visit or work you will be able to enjoy many festivals throughout the year.

This is a video I shot during a Tanabata festival that took place in my neighborhood.

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English Teaching in Japan 60-Skit Video

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:46:29 PDT

In this episode I'm back in the classroom talking about skits and I also show an example of one.

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English Teaching in Japan 59.5-Things Happen

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:51:06 PDT

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English Teaching in Japan 59-Self Correction

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:59:21 PDT

In this episode I talk about our bunkasai,using video in the classroom, and getting students to correct their own work and their classmates work.

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English Teaching in Japan 58-Cherish the Moments

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:34:47 PDT

In this episode I talk about how our bunkasai movie is going and how I cherish the moments when my students learn something new.

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English Teaching in Japan 57-Exciting Nightmare

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:17:50 PDT

In this episode I talk about mid-term exams and the upcoming bunkasai.

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English Teaching in Japan 56-New Responsibilities

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:32:23 PDT

In this episode I talked about my new responsibilities at school and what I've been up to the last two months.

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Jim the New JET-Island Veteran

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:39:11 PDT

Our good friend Jim is almost finished with his first year on the JET Program. He has been kind enough to share some of his stories about his new life as a teacher. He is from New York City and is living and teaching on a small island between Kagoshima on the southern end of Kyushu and Okinawa's main island. This is going to be an interesting adventure for him.

Read his first story
Read his second story
Read his third story
Read his fourth story

If you are on the JET and would like to share some of your stories please send me an Email

You can see and read more from Jim at his site Special Squirrels

Jim wrote

The new school year has started here. In the Japanese school (and bank and post office) system, workers get transferred to new locations every 2-4 years. They don't get any say regarding where or for how long. Just part of the job. Because of circumstances too tedious to explain, an inordinate amount of teachers left my high school to be replaced by an even greater number of new teachers. There were about 20 of us left behind to greet over 30 new people. I still haven't figured out how the board of education hasn't collapsed under the constant upheaval it inflicts upon itself, but whatever.

Anyway, the good news is a large percentage of my grumpy untalkative apartment neighbors have been shipped out, and some friendly young teachers have moved in. Since I'm now a relative veteran of the island, I took a handful of them for a day-trip around the isle to show them all the hot spots. We went to all sorts of different beaches, Some with jagged coral; some with calm inlets for snorkeling; some with special monuments erected; some with great steep cliffs; some with enormous boulders the size of buses. At each spot I was sure to take my camera out of the car, in case I saw something special.

Our last stop is popular for snorkeling, but in my opinion, not the most scenic of what the island has to offer. The entire day had been dark and cloudy, but a small hole opened in the cloud cover - allowing a beam of sunshine to come down and illuminate a relatively small circle in an otherwise gray and gloomy ocean. Moments later, a dolphin began jumping over the surface of the water right in the center of that 100m wide solar spotlight spotlight. It was like a scene out of a movie. So naturally... this was the one time during our 6 hour excursion that I chose to leave my camera in the car. Live and learn.

In other news, I'm a bit less emaciated than my former self you might have seen during my winter vacation back home. Having food shipped from America certainly helped. Also, I'm inhaling protein shakes as if my life depended on it - because, apparently... it does. I finally joined the "gym" here. The owners can't get over the amazing fact that gym (jimu) and Jim (Jimu) are kind of the same word. They find it absolutely hysterical. They're also so amused that an actual foreigner patronizes their business that they often seize the opportunity to introduce anyone who walks through the door to "New York Jimu". Even if I'm in the middle of an exercise and straining to keep the heavy weights from crashing down on my skull. It makes handshakes difficult.

At least stuffing my face and getting off the couch is apparently having an effect, though. I just went back to one of my junior high schools after not having visited for a month or two. While having tea with the teachers during break time, one of them inquired, "Jim, did you get fat?" I'm going to chalk that up to an unintentional lack of grace in translation (despite the fact that she is a teacher of English). At least I'm happy there's a visible difference now.

This week is Golden Week. A week in which there's like 4 different holidays grouped together. It's a big deal in a country where free time is almost taboo. Unfortunately, two of the holidays fall on Saturday and Sunday, so it's actually more of a Golden Weekend than a Golden Week. I won't be doing anything, though. I just took a trip off the island recently, and this week is notorious for the crowds and expenses you'll encounter if traveling - so I'm content to vegetate at home.

I guess that's it. Hope all is well. Talk to you next time.

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Teaching Thoughts Tuesday-Discovery

guzenmedia@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:46:50 PDT

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

-Mark Van Doren

I see myself as tour guide and I take my students on many adventures. I tell them a little bit about the places we are going and give them some ideas of things to do and look for. When we arrive at our destination I answer any last minute questions, give them a time and place to meet, and send them off to explore. I follow them for a while, but soon I fall back and let them go their own way. Of course I worry about them, but I'm confident they will be able find their way back if they get lost.

I wait excitedly for their return. When they get back they are usually very tired, but also very surprised and proud of what they were able to accomplish. When we sit around and share stories about the adventure I'm able to see things again through fresh eyes, rediscover things I had forgotten, and I always learn something new. I can't image doing anything more exciting or more rewarding. I'm looking forward to my and my students next discovery.

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