More on the Generic Eikaiwa. Man, talk about a racket. I actually feel sorry for the kids, parents, and especially, the native (Japanese) teachers. The junior high kids know that they’re getting into a scam and it takes a real intrepid hard-core teacher to cut through their cynicism. This is one of the reasons why the classes of the older kids (14 and 15 year olds) have only one or two pupils.
The older students were “raised” on Generic and these students are great to teach. I can tell these guys know that we, the company, suck but they come to class anyway. The sad part is that these students really want to learn English and they demonstrate this by the effort they put into their studies.
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James at Japan Probe posted this interesting video of a kid living out his mother’s dream [my opinion]. The mom is so set on her son passing frickin’ tests instead of him ENJOYING youth and LOVING TO LEARN, the poor kid is reduced to living a Japanese businessman’s life at an early age. Check out what James has to say below:
“Below is an excerpt from an NTV feature report about an elementary schooler aiming to be the youngest Japanese person to pass grade 1 of the Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency:
As you can see, the poor kid spends every single moment of his free time studying. He attends and elite private school where English language education is stressed, and when he gets home from school he engages in non-stop English cramming. Even meal times are spent watching English language movies with English subtitles as reading/listening practice. The video clip also shows him studying for a French proficiency test. His mother buys him toy cars are rewards for successfully answering study questions.
Grade 1 of the Eiken exam tests university level English proficiency, and it’s unreasonable to expect an elementary school kid to pass it. However, his mother drives him on and he takes the test. He ends up failing it, but he is determined to take it again until he passes. He’ll also continue to study French after having passed a beginner level French proficiency test.”
Here is an interesting video that gives insight into life in Japan. I don’t know if I will have time to subtitle this since I will have surgery soon.
Enjoy!
Japanese Baby - Funny bloopers R us
SAPPORO — NTT’s Communication Science Laboratories have compiled a list of the top 50 most common first words in Japanese spoken by babies and announced them at a meeting of the Japanese Psychological Association in Sapporo that started on Friday.
Researchers drew their findings from Baby’s Growth Diary, a user-generated community site where new parents can write a journal of their experiences. Data was taken from 398 infants aged 10 months to 3 years, between April 2007 and February this year.
Their results showed that “manma” (gohan [food]) was the first word to be spoken, usually around the age of 15 and a half months, with words like banana [ba-na-na] (19th), tea [ocha] (25th) and milk [mi-ru-ku] (38th) coming in later on.
At number 4 was “mama”, with “papa” coming in 8th, “jiiji” (grandfather) 24th, and “baaba” (grandmother) 37th.
Among the top 50 words, there were five times more nouns than verbs. In English-speaking countries, this ratio is closer to 12:1.
“English-speaking parents teach their children the names of things; in Asia, they tend to stress emotions and feelings,” explained researcher Tetsuo Kobayashi.
Source
BTW, what do you think of the video? Are images more powerful than words?
Part 5: Reading about Ato’s experiences made me remind myself that I’m getting
p - a -
i - d, PAID. Now mind you that I am thankful considering the state of the economy and all but I just had to spell it out. The bottom line is that I refuse to get stressed over what’s going on in my classroom. When suckers start working my nerves, (students and teachers alike) I just stare at the far wall and look over their heads. I’m looking forward to the evening, the pretty girl I’m going to see after work, the vacation I’m planning to hit a fly
onsen. 
Hmmm! Is someone starting to fall into the same trap as some of the Japanese teachers?
Then if I really get pissed off, woe to my next sparring partner
at the dojo. But seriously, let me give you some advise: ”DON’T TRY TO DISCIPLINE THE STUDENTS be it verbal or otherwise! I used to do it but then I found that some of the students will try to turn the tables on you to gain favor. I used to yell “SHut the F*CK up!” or “shhh!” be quiet, etc.
But you know, when some of these spoiled brats are use to getting their way and find out that they aren’t going to prevail over “authoritative” figures in the classroom, they will come up with some crap like CRYING (out of fear) and/or complaining to their parents at home. Their parents will then later voice their grievances with the PTA and subsequently the faculty will come under fire and usually the expendable ones a.k.a. the scapegoats many of the times will be one of the foreigners (that’s “gaijin” to some of you). Thus, instead of the powers that be owning up to the fact that THEY themselves didn’t handle their biz, namely CONTROLLING their class and maintaining order, they’ll instead come down on YOU. I guess this makes THEM look good.
With that said, I let you in on something: I was the recipient of this type of decision by the powers that be and I was reassigned to another assignment because I stood up to help another teacher. The leadership didn’t have enough backbone to stand up for me and my actions so instead, they used me as an example to say “Hey, I’m looking out for your best interests, I got rid of that MEAN ‘gaijin’, so you should respect me, okay?” So from now on, I just let them sink with their own vessels.
A loud, obnoxious class is exactly that, and when the bell rings, I’m g-h-o-s-t, GHOST.
Contributed by Kamen Hanya
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Part 4: Actually, I was thinking about it over lunch and I take it back; every Japanese teacher I work with is more or less cool (except for one who’s an a-hole by birth) it seems.
But I re-iterate my other words: there’s very little a foreign teacher can walk into a classroom and do to make the attitudes of most of the kids’ in the Japanese school system attitude any worse.
Even though I’m not an entertainer, I once had a teacher ask me in front of the class to do something stupid like dance around or beatbox and I flat out refused.
However, this last class I had..man..’listen and repeat’ - ya know the pyramid of similar sounding words that one says and the students try to guess where you come out at the bottom? The teacher consistently would mishear me and misrepeat me. At one time I had to quietly correct her cause she was making the students say the wrong thing.
As usual the discipline was non-existent and I really wanted to walk out. I had two J-teachers ‘helping’ with the class and zero participation still; one kid was doing origami in the back of the class. It wasn’t until I lost it at this one kid –because I couldn’t hear myself think above her constant chattering– that I got some respect; eye-ballin’ me and still talkin’. I was like: ’OI !OI! OI! - SHUT UP!! WHAT THE HELL, MAN?’
Then we got something done. I don’t know why the Japanese teachers are so afraid. Allowing students to choose to be that ignant and disinterested is like telling them it’s okay to stay ignant and disinterested in the whatever else when they get older - which is exactly how some Japanese act about the world outside Japan.
You know how many Japanese kids I ask for the capital or what the biggest city in Japan is and they give me ‘Hokaido’ as an answer? You know how many Japanese TEACHERS aren’t sure or just plain don’t know?
It’s sick!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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Part 3: Due to all of this drama, I’ve been (quietly) asking around and I think the PTA may be at fault!
You see, I had a class of about 40 this morning and there were at least three conversations going on in which the students’ backs were turned to me and I had to shout to be heard above them; one was sleeping on the desk; many just didn’t make eye contact and completely ignore me when I asked them questions; one girl didn’t even have her books out - she just spent the entire class examining her hair for split ends in her mirror. I tried to engage her, but she ignored me. I asked the Japanese teacher to make her participate, but she told him “No!”
Arrrgh! It’s frustrating because ultimately I’m not responsible for discipline. The Japanese teacher just looked at me, shook his head and shrugged. It’s very frustrating because I give 110% trying to make every lesson interesting.
Right now there’s a parent/teacher (PTA) meeting. I asked the teacher if someone will talk to the girl’s parents about her behavior. I was informed that all the teachers and the principal already know about her (and every other student’s) behavior, that will be informed and that he hopes her attitude changes.
It just seems like the students are given too much freedom. The students try to talk to me outside of class as if they didn’t just disrespect me in the classroom. No sense of consequence. They all behave as if their actions are totally acceptable. Read the rest of this entry »
OBJECTIVE
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test is conducted to evaluate and certify the language proficiency of non-native speakers of Japanese. It is offered once a year on the first Sunday of December. Last year, the test was administrered on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007.
CONTENTS OF THE TEST
The test has four different levels (Level 1 being the most proficient level and Level 4 the beginner level); the examinee can choose the level that best matches his or her ability and training. Each test is made up of three sections: writing-vocabulary (100 points); listening (100 points); reading-grammar (200 points).
The passing scores are 70% or higher for Level 1, and 60% for Level 2, 3, and 4. Please see the criteria below to view the test specifications and also sample tests from previous years. Read the rest of this entry »
Serkan Toto reports Japanese uber video portal Nico Nico Douga (all posts on Asiajin) recently launched international versions in German and Spanish (Nico Nico Taiwanalso exists).
However, English-speaking fans apparently will have to wait a little longer for Nico Nico to be available in English. The reason for that should be bandwith costs: The service loses close to 1 million USD a month due to high server expenses.
Please follow the instructions given in English in the screengrabs below to register for the site (click on the pictures to enlarge them).
Note: Unlike YouTube, you have to sign up in order to view videos!
Click here for part 1.
Click here for part 2.
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YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — What do a dress shop, a music store and a Mexican restaurant all have in common? A yellow sticker on the window welcoming American customers from Yokosuka Naval Base.
As of this week, 42 local businesses within a 15-minute walk from the base are sporting “base-friendly” stickers.
Restaurant owner Hiroshi Watanabe got his just last week and was trying to find the best place for it on Thursday.
“I hope the word spreads (about the stickers),” said Watanabe, who worked at Yokosuka’s Port Operations for 30 years before opening Mike’s Mexican restaurant.
Besides being one minute from the base’s main gate and having an English menu, the restaurant is base-friendly because it has “big portions,” Watanabe said.
The “base-friendly” movement grew out of discussions between the base, the City of Yokosuka and the city’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said base community relations specialist Kyoko Sugita.
For the base, it’s a “quality-of-life issue,” Sugita said. |
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Rackii (that’s Lucky, for you non Japanese speakers) me, Chicago has an pretty great public transportation system that just so happens to be color coded. When I need to get home, I take the Red Line southbound train to, let’s say, the Harrison stop and bam! I’m at my dorm. It’s sort of the same idea in Tokyo, but entirely more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated, I mean confusing (if you’ve never had to use a metro system before). My wonderful host mother drew out a totally kawaii map for me with perfect directions on how to get to Azubu (where Temple University Japan is located) from Koshigaya and back.
My host mother drove me to Kita-Koshigaya station to meet another home stay student, Hayley, who I’d spoken to for sometime thanks to the genius of Facebook networking. At any rate, we were very surprised at how easily we got from point A to point B. I hear it’s super easy to get lost on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, but we actually had the pleasure of ending up in the City so my train riding confidence has gone up through the roof. However, I’m still not used to the idea of being so packed in a train I can barely breath. The second train we hopped onto was just that packed. Riding the trains here takes a certain amount of mental fortitude I had absolutely no idea I even had.
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I have heard of running, marching, walking, biking, swimming and other events to raise funds for AIDS and HIV research but letting men (or women) cop a feel for 1000 yen wins for the most outrageous campaign yet, unless your in Japan that is!
Via Danny Choo: “Japan - the place where you can pay 1,000 yen and get to research the eyes of an AV girl… Personally not for me but who here is game?”
Feel Up AV Stars for AIDS Research TOKYO - It is a recent Sunday afternoon inside the offices of adult video broadcaster Paradise TV. Two enthusiastic female voices can be heard counting from behind a pair of covered booths: “Ichi, ni, san, shi, go!” The entry flap of one booth is labeled with the kanji character pronounced ushiro (behind) and colored pink, the other is yellow and marked oppai (breast). Outside is a line of five men, each of whom is eagerly awaiting his turn to grab (with both hands) the bare buttocks and breasts of two adult video (AV) actresses five times for 1,000 yen - with all the proceeds being used for research to prevent the spread of the HIV virus and AIDS.
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Most of you all know that Fukuda resigned as Prime Minister (PM) of Japan. In response to why I didn’t blog about his resignation, the short answer is: “I’m waiting for the rest of the story!” In the meantime, I am following the buzz about Taro Aso.
The following article was forwarded by Tenrou Kibagami. Kibagami has been following the otaku culture’s news regarding Aso’s candidacy for PM. For those unfamiliar with the term, “otaku” are basically fanboys. While there can be different types of otaku, the term is commonly associated with the anime and manga (cartoons/comics) crowd. Aso is an admitted manga fan, having said to read about 10 to 20 manga magazines a week. His hobby may pay off for collectors! Read the rest of this entry »
The fast-growing site is the king of social networking among Japanese users, and it really rakes in the online ads
Asuka Kosaka joined Facebook this year to connect with her English-speaking friends. But when the 29-year-old wants to share her thoughts and photos with 70 friends and family members in Japan, she heads straight for another site: Mixi.
Mixi (2121.T) may not have the global reach of social networking giants Facebook and MySpace, but in Japan it’s king. The Tokyo company had 15 million users as of June, a 40% gain from 10.7 million a year earlier. No other social networking site even comes close, analysts say. Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace disclose only worldwide numbers. “Most of my friends don’t know that Facebook and MySpace have Japanese-language sites,” says Kosaka. Read the rest of this entry »
