Hi dear friends and fellow travelers,
Today, we have a brilliantly sunny day with pastel blue skies and wipsy clouds. It is blustery, so some of my line-drying laundry landed on the ground over night. Oh well, there weren't enough clothes pins. I suspect the beautiful day conceals a chilly temperature.
On today's agenda, I get to hang out at my apartment until around noon, when I will meet Jerry (a Californian Taiwanese man in his early 30's) and his Taiwanese wife of 6 months. They will be taking me to the, yes, you are hearing this right, the dollar store (100 Yen store- hahaha!) for some shopping. Next, we will go to an Italian restaurant in the mountains that is their favorite. Interestingly, Jerry will order in advance so the elderly female owner has enough time to prepare the food. He says it takes a loooong time, if you don't call ahead.
In the meantime, I am having a bit of breakfast: a couple of croissants, fresh strawberries (that taste and smell divine- not genetically altered), and English-style Celyon tea. And I'm writing to you, dear reader.
Yesterday, I visited a small elementary school in an out of the way little burg with Jerry and John, a Korean graduate student at HUTE. Jerry was doing some research on task-based language learning with 5th and 6th graders. Since my research has to do with what works with Japanese students learning English, this was a good opportunity to glimpse whether this approach paid dividends in language acquisition. I'll not bore you with my research; rather, I will share the interesting highlights not related to my work.
When we entered the school there was a little foyer where one leaves one's shoes and uses slippers that are there for visitors. So, everywhere there are either little lockers for shoes or neat rows of them. :-)I really like this idea. I would love to have some slippers for guests in my home. I'm going to try this.
The teachers' room at each of the schools is packed with desks and everyone works quietly in the same area. Even the principal has a desk there; although, he had a private office, too. There was a space heater in the middle that made it very toasty in the room; I didn't realize it until we went to the classroom, but the heating wasn't very high in the halls and classes. I froze during the observation, but everyone else seemed fine.
The window-lined, hard-wooded floored room was large with many, many reading materials along the walls and colorful posters. The doors slid quietly on their edges. The chairs were brought in by the students, but there were rollable, trapezoid shaped tables that the students used when they broke into small groups for work. There was a rollable white board, document camera, audio player, etc. Toward the far back of the room was a Broadcasting Room, cool!
When I walked in the door of the class, a special needs girl immediately snapped to attention and came right for me. She thought I was soooo interesting. lol. :-) She introduced herself and shook my hand several times. She did this again when I left. She almost couldn't pay attention to the class, because of me. She was fascinated by me. I have no idea why. But how sweet she is.
Several other children were very interested in me. They approached me, but seemed unsure how to interact with me. I felt a bit of the animal at the zoo with folks just gazing at me. ;-) A couple of the boys would make silly faces at me from time to time, but I felt that it was in a teasing, looking-for-attention-and-not-knowing-how-to-get-it sort of way. Two pretended to pinch me when I wasn't looking, isn't that interesting?
After the lesson, Jerry had to chat with some students, so John and I went to the teachers' room. We were there 1 minute when the principal came out and ask for the Dr. to come to his office for relaxation. The principal, when we exchanged cards earlier, took it to his office to study, then came back and said, "Doctor?" He was quite impressed with my credentials. So, when we went to his office, I gave him a small gift of a UWEC calendar. He was so cool! He asked me all kinds of questions about Eau Claire, WI, and the U based on the pictures. He asked about the weather, the range of weather, the diversity of student population, the University offerings, etc. all with not much English on his part, and less Japanese on mine. I love making meanings in those moments; folks just expressing themselves openly, genuinely and trying their best to understand the other through pictures, numbers, gestures, etc. It was super cool. After Jerry came, we chatted a bit more since Jerry could translate. We then left the building with the principal and staff and took pictures in front of the building in the chilly breeze. They were quite lovely people and I will cherish this visit there.
On the way to the school, we stopped at a roadside rest stop that had all kinds of food. I had delicious udon noodles with pork. Yum. I also bought some incredible chocolates.
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