Best of 2012! Looking back on another good year

My 2012 Top 10 -- In no specific order!

1. Megumi, Michael, Mei and I all staying basically healthy and having fun from day to day! We were blessed again with a year of no serious illnesses or injuries. The photo above is from our snow trip to Nobeyama just after Christmas, where Michael tried snowboarding for the first time (and found it takes a lot of practice) and Mei enjoyed a two hour ski lesson for preschool kids.
   
2. Enjoying my final year of teaching at ICU. I can't emphasize enough how wonderful it have been to be work with these students over the past seven years. ICU has a tradition of high expectations for the students to make efforts and engage in rigorous intellectual work, and the students (almost all) come with the motivation to challenge themselves to become better learners and communicators. In particular, the amount of research paper writing in English that each student is required to do is very important, and I find it the most rewarding part of my job along with teaching skills for reading, research, discussion and presentations. When I leave in April, I will greatly miss the teaching I do here.
   
3. In relation to the above, successfully finding my next position, an exciting new project with Keio to start in April 2013. Much of my energy in the first half of 2012 was spent preparing paperwork, going to interviews, pondering decisions about my future, and launching preparations for my new position. As much as I'll miss ICU, I'm looking forward to meeting the challenges of creating and running a completely new English program from April.
   
4. Making presentations at the INTED Conference in Valencia, Spain in March (See Report), and being able to visit Barcelona and Madrid in short trips before and after.
   
5. Coordinating "Leadership English" for the Global Leadership Studies Program at ICU for the 2nd year. It was a great pleasure working with the Japanese professionals who came for the month-long intensive training.
   
6. Refreshing my skills for teaching English to young kids at the ASIJ Summer Day Camp in July-August (See Report). I got through a month of teaching 2nd graders full-time...and actually enjoyed it. I really appreciated the support I got from my colleagues and administrators in SDC. It is amazing how actively and cheerfully the students learn once a positive, cooperative atmosphere is created.
   
7. Continuing to run and stay healthy.  My time for the Tokyo Marathon in Feb. 2012 was 4 hr 40 min, and a half-marathon in October was 2 hr. 8 min.
   
8. Being able to take a family trip to Guam in June (See Report). A treasured luxury...and only affordable because off-season rates in June for going to Guam from Tokyo are extremely, extremely low.
   
9. Becoming an iPhone user, finally! Being able to connect to wifi at home, on campus, and other places (with the Otosan dog sticker) around Tokyo is sooooo nice, and very useful for taking and managing photos, researching things on the net, updating things on Facebook (the main reason why my blog is slowing down), and listening to things such as my daily dose of Chinese news podcasts, music, and audio books. My current challenge is keeping my password secret from my kids who want to use my phone for watching their favorite videos, drawing pictures, and playing games. They are constantly peeking at my fingers logging in trying to steal my code...
   
10. Volunteering in Tokyo to clean up tsunami debris: I had wanted to do this earlier in 2011, but finally I was able to join volunteer bus that went to Minami-Sanriku in November and learned that there is still a lot of work to do. The group I joined is the Ossan Volunteers who support an NGO called DSP. Website is here. I strongly recommend going. There are still many areas that need cleaning, and some areas still need to be searched for bodies of victims.

I think I can say 2012 was a very good year, and I realize that my happiness is based on the invaluable support I get from my family, friends, colleagues, students, and members of the community. Thank you everyone!

Note: I hope to add more photos and links when I get a chance!

Happy New Year 2013! + Goals

To start 2013, my wife Megumi and I drove to the coast near her hometown in Kosai, Shizuoka to see a beautiful new year's sunrise coming up over the Pacific ocean.

I pray that this year will be peaceful, joyful and meaningful for all of you.

My resolutions for 2013 include:

1. Making a smooth transition to my new job (details to be announced in March).
   I have enjoyed seven wonderful years of teaching at ICU and would love to continue, but my contract will expire soon and I have had no choice but to seek new employment. This is  due to a strange policy of "non-renewable contracts" that Japanese universities use. Most students don't know this, but the majority of university language instructors in Japan are used in a system that discards experienced, contributing instructors after a few years and replaces them with outsiders regardless of performance. Although I knew my contract was non-renewable when I signed it seven years ago, it is still painful to be forced to leave a job I care about for no reason other than "it is the system." It is a system that must be change. Nevertheless, I hope to enjoy my last three months at ICU working closely with my students and colleagues to the end.
   
   Fortunately, I have found an exciting new position with Keio starting in April and am looking forward to the challenges. My main goal is to become an active, contributing member in a dynamic team of  educators providing a high quality learning environment to our students.
   
   That's the big, new one for this year. The rest are quite similar to those of previous years.
   
2. As a husband, have more dates with my wife Megumi. With work and kids, this is always a challenge each year. But the kids are getting older, and finding a babysitter arrangement should be easier.
    
3. As a father, keep helping my kids (Michael 9 and Mei 5)  learn to care about and be helpful to others. We'll continue our sponsorship of a World Vision project in Ethiopia, and I hope we can do something more hands on in Japan as well. I went to Tohoku by myself last year, but I hope we can do something as a family. I also hope to keep pursuing my goal of reading to them in English each night, and since we couldn't make it to the US to visit relatives last year, I hope to definitely take them in the summer.
   
4. Keep running and stay healthy. I'll start with a half marathon in February to make up for failing to get through the Tokyo Marathon lottery, and hopefully I can do a full one later in the year. I hope I can squeeze in some mountain climbing or overnight trekking in the summer as well
   .
5. Take up something new? I have a feeling I'll be busy enough adjusting to my new job, so I'll see how things go.
   

That should do it. Looking forward to making 2013 a sssssssssssssssstimulating and sssssssssssssssuccessfull year!

! 

Mei: Daddy, why did God make viruses? Dad: ...

My 5 year old daughter Mei and I were sitting on our couch watching the news on some Japanese TV channel and the issue being discussed was computer viruses infecting people's computers. The following is a real conversation as accurate as I can reproduce from my memory. Mei: Daddy, what's a virus? Dad: It's like a teeny tiny bug that makes people or computers sick. Like when you catch a cold, it's because of a virus, and you have to take some medicine to kill it. Mei: Why did God make those? Dad: (Stumped) Uh...hmm...good question. Mei: Why did God make bad things? Like mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes. Dad: Yeah, I hate those too. Good question. I guess you'll have to ask God. Mei: When I die?? Dad: Yeah. Mei: But that's too late!!

Who is this guy "Mark"? Who am I?

Mark who ami-10x10 from markc0908

I should add a bit of commentary on this.

I assigned a slide show for a self-introduction to my Sophomore class titled You: A Course of Personal Writing and created one for myself.

Below are some notes to match the slides above.

The first slide shows an old passport photo of my mother Eileen with my older brother Chris (right), myself (left), and my first younger sister Jeannette. My second younger sister Karen wasn't born yet.

The second slide shows all of us, including my father Warren, standing in the fields of Asashina in Saku in Nagano. That is where I grew up as the son of protestant missionary parents, attending Japanese elementary school and one year of junior high school.

For my high school years, I attended Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ), an international school in Higashi-Kurume in Tokyo. The photo where I hold the loudspeaker shows one of the activities I directed as student president in my senior year.

The cherry blossoms are a photo taken off the net showing University of Washington, where I majored in International Studies with a focus on China and also Chinese Language and Literature.

Next is a photo of Megumi, my wife, who I met in Shizuoka when I was working for the international business department of a Japanese car systems manufacturer. We got married in 1999 and she is the love of my life.

 We have two children, Michael born in 2003 and Mei born in 2007, and playing with them and helping them mature is the most important and most enjoyable thing I do.

Anxieties...am I doing a good job as a father? The picture shows Michael when he got a little carried away playing with his cousin Colton putting on the black stuff used by baseball players under their eyes.

 The future...I plan to just keep doing my best to develop as a language educator, with a future goal of doing teacher training. A doctorate degree is also a possibility in the near? future. Step by step.

For fun, I run marathons and enjoy hiking and kayaking among other things such as hanging out with Megumi and my kids, or a cold beer with friends.

So, that's a bit of who I am. Any questions?

中日ドラゴンズ逆転勝ち！

夏の夜の神宮球場ビジター応援

ウチの息子は大の中日ドラゴンズファン。接戦からの勝利でマイキもメイも大興奮。夏のナイター、気持ちいいですね。ビールもおいしい！

Nice message

Guam 2012 Family Trip

We were able to take a few day off and fly to Guam for some nice R&R.

Highlights:

1. The beautiful Tamon Bay and Ipao Beach area. Such calm beautiful waters, and not crowded at all in the off season of late June. Great for kids to snorkel!

2. The pools and activities at PIC. Great staff! Michael and Mei loved the water walk, slides, and game times. They didn't really go for the Kids Club, so we weren't able to send them off all day and relax like Megu and I planned to...but it was fun playing with them in the pool and beach. Highly recommended for families with kids, and only a little trouble with rowdy drunk hotel room neighbors shouting in the middle of the night.

3. Fishing with Michael. Like last year, he kicked my butt! Michael = 8 fish. Dad = 4 fish.

4. Doing very little for a week (just a few hours of online work I had to do for two or three days). Not going anywhere. Just swimming and relaxing.

5. Tony Roman's ribs. Mmmmm. The local Chamorro food was good too, but I would still vote for the ribs as best. The sashimi from the fish we caught and ate on the fishing boat was also exquisite.

Gakkou Koukai: Visiting my son's primary school and English Activities

Last Saturday was a Open House (gakkou koukai) for Michael's primary school, a public school in Mitaka. He's in the 2nd grade this year and loves his school life very much.

Open House is a day where the kids have school all day on a Saturday, and the parents and other guests can roam the halls and visit classes freely.

I wanted to see my son's classes, of course, but also wanted to peek in on some English Activities (eigo katsudo) classes which were being held in classrooms of 4th graders and 6th graders.

For my son, I had a chance to see him doing a language arts class and a crafts class. In the language arts class, which was supposed to be a PE class outside but changed suddenly to language arts due to the rain, the teacher read a story to the second graders in a whispered voice (she had a cold in her throat that day), with the 30 or so second graders crowded toward the teacher's chair to listen carefully. After the story, they got some comprehension and discussion questions on cards that they discussed with their neighbors. Then students took turns reading the questions and the students who knew the answer raised their hands. Interestingly, the teacher only asked the students to raise their hands, and did not actually call on anybody to answer. Perhaps she was keeping things safe to avoid loss of face by students with so many parents watching to see what the kids would say? A very low key lesson, but very impressive to see that the kids' ability to focus was high and they stayed quiet and controlled for 45 minutes sitting on the floor in front of the teacher. Was the good behavior because of the parents visiting? Or does the teacher have good control of the class from day to day? I'm curious to ask, but I would guess that my son's teacher has done a good job with the crew over the past year and a half, inspite of being fresh out of her college and certification program and getting a cohort of wild untrained first graders last year. I remember that in last year's classes in Open House, around this time 12 months ago, a few members of the class couldn't keep still and had to pull stunts to draw attention to themselves every few minutes. Those guys were well under control.

Craft class was also very nice. I didn't stay for the whole time, but the lesson had a nice flow of one group of students teaching another group of students how to make a moving toy. Good practice of communication skills and collaboration. My son taught one of his classmates how to make a dancing cup out of a paper cup, rubber band, sheet of paper and tape. Very patient and friendly teaching!

In addition to my son's 2nd grade, I visited one 4th grade class and 6th grade class to see their English Activities, and stayed about half an hour in each one.

Both were doing Halloween theme activities.

My notes/observations

• The teachers were Japanese home room teachers only. No ALTs. I'm not sure why this happened because using ALTs more is an explicit goal of Mitaka education for English in primary school. Anyway, what impressed me was that both of the Japanese home room teachers who taught the lessons were VERY GOOD English speakers. Very capable with basic communication and classroom management English. Pretty good pronunciation, too. At least one had obviously studied abroad for a while.
• The flow of the lesson seemed to be 1) picture flash cards for Halloween vocabulary, combined with a short explanation of the meaning of Halloween in Japan, at least for the sixth graders. The flash card sequence seemed routine. First, after choral repetition, the teacher prompted the students for the Japanese equivalent expression to confirm understanding. The prompting was done in English "What's xx in Japanese? Do you know?" and volunteers answered in Japanese, all correctly. Then students repeated and were quizzed on them a little. 2) Games: For the 4th graders, Janken (Paper Scissors Rock 123...) + "Do you have witch?" for the 4th graders + winner gets one of the other person's picture cards. For the 6th graders, vocabulary bingo. In both games, the usage of spoken English by the students was very low. Most group work or free work included a lot of Japanese interaction. Some use of the English vocabulary may have been included, but I couldn't hear it. So...through the lesson, the students only seem to have heard and repeated 6~9 Halloween words such as bat, witch, Jack-o-Lantern (a mouthful), vampire, mummy, ghost. Input also included classroom English from the teachers, who seemed to speak only English...which is quite commendable for a non-English teaching specialist.
• There was no review of basics, and there seemed to be very little accumulation of functional language that the students could use except for "What's this?", which the students only used when required. No spontaneous use was seen. 
• Since Mitaka started English activities in September 2007, the six graders have so far had a total accumulated school English Activities hours of...let's see...in 3rd grade 25 hours, 4th grade 25 hours, 5th grade 35 hours, and now in October of 6th grade, about 17 hours. Almost 100 periods of 45 minutes. That's the equivalent of about a bit less than a year of junior high? 
• I think a specialist with a continuous, accumulating curriculum could have built a foundation of English by 100 hours, but this is very difficult in Mitaka schools because 1) English activities are NOT for English. They are for, as the national curriculum stipulates, experiencing the fun and curiosity of learning about foreign cultures and languages. However, that balance is very hard to strike. You either do cultural experiences with many languages and cultures with a little English thrown in, or you do English mainly with a little intercultural experience thrown in to show the context of why they are learning English and where English comes from. 
• It would be very interesting to interview the teachers to see what their thoughts are about the current use of time in the English Activities hours. My feeling was that the teachers were not really sure which way the class should go, and as a result, the time ends up being spent with fun and games to ensure, at the very least, that no child will end up disliking English before going to junior high...
• ...But I think it is difficult for kids to like English, especially in the higher primary grades, when they are only liking the games and the lack of pressure. 
• My stance on English in Japanese public primary schools continues to be: If you are going to do it, do it WElL. Do it systematically and with dedication of trained teachers. Communicate with the junior high school and agree on what foundation the children will be given in elementary school. Including basic phonics for pronunciation practice and sound-letter association should be completely within a reasonable reach with 100 hours even if the pace is 45 minutes per week. Give the children a sense of accomplishment--build in a lot of repetition of basics (numbers, alphabet, greetings, exchanges, reactions, chunks of phrases) that are repeated in every class.
• Or...if not done with organization and dedication, perhaps it is better to not do it and to leave it alone until junior high school??
• I'm curious what other primary schools in Mitaka are doing, and how the education committee is coordinating the efforts between them. My experience with the education committee shows that they may not have any personal qualifications or experience with language teaching, and their efforts to coordinate language teaching probably need help. 
• I'm willing to help if they are willing to listen...

Why Boys Need Parents - LOL!

This came around from, of all people, my own dear father. Yes, I did a few of these things when I was a kid.

http://izismile.com/2009/04/07/why_boys_need_parents_39_pics.html

Huge typhoon! Looks like it will be going right over our heads

A good day to stay inside and read book...stay safe everyone!

The FOOOOOOOSBall TABLE: A family project

It was a rainy Saturday and we had nothing to do for a few hours.

My son picked up a broken toy wood xylophone that we were planning to throw away and said,

"Let's make something with this."

"What do you want to make?"

"A soccer game. See Dad, these wood things are the guys."

"OK...and we can use that empty clothing case..."

That got our brain gears turning on what turned out to be a two day project.

Drawing the characters was the easy part. To start off, Mom, Dad, Michael and Mei (with help) each drew one.

But how are we going to connect the guys to the poles?

Off to J-Mart, our local DIY store. We got a bunch of 90mm x 20mm stainless steel plates with 3mm holes (45yen each) to bend around the poles and screw onto the wood players. And we needed green felt for soccer turf...and a 20mm diameter drill bit for the holes...and a pack of 3mm x 10mm screws...and a few more 15mm diameter x 600mm poles and we were in business. About 3000yen altogether.

And 500yen to rent an industrial impact drill with enough torque to open 20mm holes through the plastic box. I tried my own old B&D 12V home use drill and it started spewing black smoke! The motor fried. Oh well, it was almost ten years old and I I needed a new one anyway.

At this point, Megumi kindly pointed out that it may be cheaper to just buy a Foosball Table on Amazon. Yes, this is true, my love, but we are making a special one-of-a-kind foosball table. And J-Mart loves our business. 



Michael did a great job on taping the lines and with decorating the players as well as sawing the board and poles, hammering in nails, drilling the holes, screwing on the metal strips. Mei and Megumi helped by drawing the characters. We have some good nadeshiko members on the field.

The player pieces made from xylophone keys are all different sizes, so the poles can't be spun like real foosball, but it works well enough.

As final touches, we need some nets for the goals and some handles and stoppers on the poles...and a scoreboard. We'll work on those.

















All done! Time for some family foosball!

Seattle Family Trip 2011

For Megumi and the kids, this was a one month stay with my Mom (Grandma) in Seattle. For me, it was two weeks since I was teaching the summer GLS program at ICU.

We weren't sure whether we could come up with the money for airfare etc., but because I got the summer job, it worked out and I'm very glad we decided to go. The kids had a great time hanging out with their cousins and going to local camps at YMCA etc. and Megumi and I were able to enjoy meeting family and friends in the dry, cool, sunny Seattle area.

Below are just a few photo highlights for the record. We have sooooo many good pictures and videos from this month long event that it is very difficult and time consuming to go through and choose the best pictures!