what language do you speak as a base?

Yesterday, I joined a study session which is regularly held at a university in a suburb area of Tokyo. The professor in charge invited me to the group when I attended the conferene at the beginning of summer. It was the first meeting this term and of course it was the first time for me to join the group.

Before the meeting, I had a mixed feeling: I was a bit nervous but of course I was excited. Just after I passed the gate of the university, I came across a senior friend there. I did not know but she said that she is teaching at the university as a part-time teacher. We both were so surprised and the great coincidence relieved my tensed feeling.

The group consists of only 5 or 6 students and a professor. I prefer a smaller group than a large class when I study because it is easier for me to speak out. What we do in the meeting is we all are assigned to read a newly-published article before the meeting and one student presents what is written. After the presentation, we discuss the topic, contents, problem of the article and so forth.

The meeting was so interesting and exciting to me because the article we read this week was written by a researcher who I am so familir with. It does not mean that I have met the researcher, but I have read some articles of his before.

However, I had a problem with the meeting. The handout distributed was typed in English but the presentation and discussion was done using Japanese. This kind of mixture made me confused.

I am a Japanese and of course my mother tongue is Japanese. Basically, it is easier and faster to understand Japanese than English even after I stayed in the US for two years. Now I do not have a crucial problem with listening English, but before going to the US, the process of understanding Englihs is like this: listen to the words -> translate them into Japanese in mind -> get the meaning.

But speaking of Linguistics, I only learned it using English in the US. I was not used to discuss it in Japanese. The biggest problem is terminology. I do not know many special terms of the field in Japanese. But another big problem is the mixture of the languages. The presenter used Japanese to explain the handout which was written in English. But she used many English terms in Japanese sentences without translating.

My problem was that I failed to code-switch. She used Japanese but her Japanese sounded like English sentences to me (it means that her sentences were like direct-translation) and also it included a lot of English words. None the less, it was Japanese!

At the beginning of the meeting, I really needed to concentrate to understand what the presenter said. As one native speaker suggested, it might be better to make the handout written in Japanese. But strange to say, it did not take me so long to get used to the situation. Within one hour and a half, I thought the problem was not so big as I had thought before. The reason may be that I am a Japanese and the target language was Japanese. If the case was vice versa, the situation might be tougher to me.

I am sorry that I wrote so long this time. I thought I experienced a funny one yesterday, so I could not help writing this in my blog. Thank you for reading this long text!

flower

I had a birthday almost a week ago and I became 31. Thus far, I have never hidden my age. But this year is a bit different. Only one year made a big difference although I have no idea about the reason. The birthday of 31 is just bigger than every birthday before. The day made me wonder what my life is, what I want to do not only just now but also throughout whole my life, and what my goal is in the long run. I do not think I have one obvious answer, but all of sudden I started to ask myself about these questions.

Also, there was another big event on the birthday. I have almost never been given flowers for my birthday before. But at 9:30 on the morning of my birthday, the postman came and delivered a big basket of flowers. It was from one best friend. I was astonished to see it because I remembered that she had a big exam on the day and I guessed that she was too busy to remember my birthday. I appreciated it, and I was almost crying then.

In addition, I had a coincidence. One day before, I met two close friends and they celebrated my birthday at a restaurant. They gave me a set of preserved flowers. As I said, I had never been given flower for my birthday, I was also surprised then as well.

Back to the flower basket, I was also surprised at the coincidence. Different best friends gave me two different flowers for my birthday. I wondered what it meant. Did I forget flowers in my life these days? My mental situation was lack of flower? Maybe, yes. I need to keep flowers in my mind all the time even though I have a tough time.

Every experience gives me a lesson. The gifts from my friends are beyond the object of flowers to me. They taught me an important thing. I cannot forget the gorgeous flower in my mind. I am one of the luckiest person in the world to have great friends.

Power of a piece of flower

I have got a job to teach at a private girls high school from September as a part-time teacher. Today I went to the school to have a meeting with my future colleagues to discuss the classes starting from fall.

On the way back from the school to the nearest station, I found something brightly yellow on the ground, which was kind of a bush just next to the sidewalk. Since it has been raining for a couple of days consecutively, everything around seemed dim and grey, but the yellow was so vivid and outstanding in the rain. I soon realized that it was a piece of sunflower but I wondered why it was there without becoming darkish. But the yellow color was too strong for me to miss something important behind it. But just after I passed the flower, I felt something, and looked back. Then I found that there was a dead cat beneath the flower.

She (or maybe he) was so wet and her color was brown, and therefore she was hidden with the color of the ground. Usually, I felt so sad and even scared to find or see dead animals, and try not to see them as much as I can. However, I felt different feeling this time. Her face looked very peaceful and even cute and I did not feel scared. Even the scene made my heart warm. If I had just found the cat without the flower, I would have felt the same as usual. Iwould have run away from it. Only one piece of flower changed the sad or scary situation into a peaceful one.

From the scene, there are a lot of stories I could imagine. The cat might have been killed by a car on the street, someone felt sorry for her and s/he may have moved the cat to the sidewalk. Someone may have felt guilty if s/he was the driver. Someone may have been just a passer-by and felt sorry for her. Or, the cat may have just died the because of some kind of illness or aging. But I am sure that someone put the flower on the cat for her. The vivid yellow color of the flower obviously showed someone's prayer for the cat.

I just passed by the place, but the scene is still in my mind lively. I will pray for the cat before going to bed today.

veggies

Today, I found a nice place to do grocery shopping near our place. Since the ward district I live in has the largest areas of vegetable fields in the city, I knew that they offer a lot of local food. But I had not found a place offering the local fresh ones by the farmers directly till today.

There is a supermarket near the station but I seldom buy veggies there because they are too expensive to buy regularly. Usually I go to the different supermarket which is located a bit farther but they sell stuffs cheaper.

I just stopped by the ward office to find some social activity for volunteering after going to the dentist. I happened to find the colorful spot at the corner there. I was so happy to find the place that I bought a lot today: bitter melons, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, corns and pears. They cost just 1,000 yen (approximately $10) in total. If I bought them at the supermarket, they would have been almost double, I guess.

Actually, these days vegetables are not so expensive compared to those in previous days but I cannot help comparing them with in the US. The price is the same but the amount is much less in Japan. In addition, we have to buy them almost every other day because they easily get decayed. I suppose they are fresh but they are not given less chemicals, which is good for us.

Today, I cooked summer curry with a lot of corns for dinner:)

This is the fireworks in my city. There were so many people around the bay area. Since I really love to see them especially in summer, I cannot miss the event. This is kind of one of the typical Japanese culture, I guess.

scenery from my condo

Since our condo is built on the top of the hill, we can see the nice view from there. If it is clear, sometimes we can see Mt. Fuji. I was raised up at a house where Mt. Fuji was seen very nicely and clearly, so the mountain means special to me. This pic could not catch the Mt. Fuji, but still the sunset was beautiful.

These days, I take exercise at night after dinner around 30min-one hour. I do walk fast, and sometimes I run slowly, which makes me sweat a lot. I hope it burns a lot of energy... And I found that there is a nice place where I can see the wide sky becuase the place is surrounded by only paddle fields and veggie fields, without any electric wires. The scenery of wide sky reminded me of the scene in Athens.

Yes, now it is the time to adapt myself to the life in Japan.

What is English teaching?

I have got two temporary jobs in schools only for summer. One is teaching English at a school camp of intensive learning only for three days. This is kinda students' preparation for the entrance exam for universities. I will be in charge of five third-year students. Since it has been long time since I before taught Juken-eigo, acquiring special English skills for universities' entrance exam, I am a bit nervous. But at the same time, I am so excited to teach them because I am sooooo bored of being by myself in a daytime.

Another job is supposed to be a teaching one, but it turned out that I am not teaching there. I will check the report of students regularly, not teaching in classrooms because the school is mainly focusing on correspondence courses. Students usually send thier assingment by mail, which is called Report, and teachers check it and return it to the students. The new system in public schools is newly developed in my prefecture and luckily the school is located pretty close to my place.

However, there are some students who attend classes in a classroom setting. Just for my reference, I asked one English teacher to let me observe one class of the Oral Communication 1 the day before yesterday and I was so stunned to see it... Usually I do not like to make a complaint, but I cannot help doing it this time. The class was fifty minutes but the activities the teacher arranged for the class was only two: listening which is in the textbook and a very short speech which was already prepared in the last meeging. For the rest of the time in class, the students were asked to fill in the Report and redeveloped their speech individually. Luckily, the class is small enough for the teacher to take care of every student. But the teacher almost never used English in class although the class was Oral Communication! Only CD spoke and the students used English in their speech.

I rerealized that that is the real situation in English education in Japan, especially public schools. Of course there are great English teachers even in public schools, but I guess not so many, compared with private schools. The experience made me think about the English education system in Japan again... But I am not sure what I can do for it so far...