And I thought Japanese was hard...try learning English

Notice the EA in the following: My heart thumps! Do you hear the bear growling so early in the year? Each "ea" makes a different sound. That's just one example, I'm sure many people know others. We just complete our 4 day training on the curriculum that we teach here at MeySen. If you are like me, as soon as you hear the word curriculum, you will probably want to skip to the next blog. I'll try to keep it brief and basic. Any teachers out there that want to know more just let me know. Its actually kind of interesting.

Each day this past week, we started training at 9AM and finished around 3. In my previous post about MeySen, I  talked about how the academy basically starts Immersion (only English) in 1st grade and the kids can only join MeySen in that year. What I didn't realize is that this program is relatively new and is already in over 200 different schools around the world. Some employees are actually heading to Michigan in a few weeks to train teachers over there. If you want more details on the curriculum check  GrapeSEED. Basically, we teach English a similar way to how children absorb their mother language from birth. We teach and talk in only English at the Academy. Through action games, stories, songs, and writing (older grades) the students start to absorb it through repetition and practice.

Wednesday night, there was a party for all of the immersion teachers and we got to know each other better. One thing I I realized very quickly is how intense all the immersion teachers are here. We played the craziest game of Charades I have ever played. It turned into this shouting match with people wrestling for a marker. I was pretty fearful for my own safety.

We also got to enjoy tacos for the first time. There are a lot of random foods that I am slowly starting to miss such as: Lucky Charms,  Pizza, marinara sauce, actual spaghetti, Taco Bell, salsa. I am actually getting used to the foods here though. It feels so much more healthy than all the crap I was eating in the US. Probably the worst I felt since Ive been here came after eating KFC (darn you Colonel Sanders).

Also that night, we got to find out which grades we were placed in. I found out I am going to be a 3rd grade teacher which I am pretty pumped about. I student taught 2nd grade and long-term subbed 3rd grade so it will be really cool to see the similarities and differences between Japanese 3rd graders and the ones in Muskegon, Michigan.

Thursday night, we celebrated the end of training by watching "Top Gun." I forgot how incredibly cheesy the whole movie was. The crazy thing was at the very end of the movie, the floor began to shake. It kind of felt like a guy next to you was nervously bouncing his legs up and down. It was my first experience with an earthquake. I was actually really excited for some reason. I assume this won't be my continued response ;).

Next week starts the fun stuff. I will be going into classrooms observing and teaching a little. Today we had a nice day off for some holiday I can't really figure out but I'll take it. I'm hoping to go and enjoy more of this Japanese world around me.