End of Summer, Finding an Application, and Teaching Japanese

I've been through a lot since I last wrote on this blog.

Over the summer after the Japanese Language Academy, I had more work to do for school than my project, so it was time to take a break for a little while. At least, it wasn't the same as directly working on language for four to five hours a day. I've learned a lot more about Japanese since I came back, and although it seemed like at the time I may not have learned a lot, it turns out if I see something familiar a lot of the time it comes right back to me because I have a memory to associate it with. Working in school at the same time as my Senior Project, I did not have the same amount of time to devote to studying Japanese as early in the summer. However, just trying to read or listen to something slightly new each week (and reviewing the things I may have forgotten) allowed me to continue making a difference.

Yet, back in school, I still wasn't sure what I was going to do for the main component of my application. That didn't mean I didn't have a lot of ideas. At first, I was merely planning to take a test: the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level four... but wasn't sure what to do beyond that. Well after getting caught up in school, I made what I considered to be a pretty grave mistake-- and actually missed the deadline for the test which ended up being some time in early September for the December exam! (It only takes place once a year) I have to say I was very surprised and felt foolish for not making sure I was on top of this in Spring. I never thought I would have to be and thought that I would actually be able to sign up for this in November, which was a mistake. I don't know what I was thinking.

I began thinking however. I was thinking about everything I had done and all the experiences I had. First, I learned how to teach myself. Second, I was taught by others. This was really entirely a direct self-teaching and learning experience. So, I began to shift my gears toward teaching, which is something I'd really like to know how to do. No, I am not literally thinking about seeking a degree in education- but I think it can help develop a lot of leadership and management skills which can carry over into all aspects of life.

How did I set up a way to teach people? What was I going to do exactly? And who was willing to spend their time learning what to many may be a completely random language with someone who isn't actually licensed to teach, nor is actually fluent in Japanese? There are a few.

I started looking for programs which teach Japanese in the area. I then remembered that I had chosen mine because it was basically the only one. So it didn't seem I'd be able to work or get help from any organization. Of course, this gave me some more freedom to do things entirely my own way. I thought about starting something myself. I wanted to see how big I could make it, and how successful it could be. I decided a good place to start was with people I know, so I looked at the school. I talked to people and fished for interest. I had already been fishing for ideas everywhere.

Eventually, I discussed the logistics of teaching people that I knew, and getting people to meet with me at regularly scheduled times. A problem with this however, was that all people I knew who would be interested in learning Japanese all have different times they are available, and when they are free. So I can understand why there aren't a lot of options for learning in our area. There is no base that is actually free to do it. I decided the only feasible thing to do was to start at school.

I had my first club meetings in November. Originally, I was planning to design my course over the December break, but getting started now (when club periods started) ended up being a good idea. I was able to feel what it was like to teach, and began to get a grasp on the challenges I would face. The first day I taught, I think I was somewhat of a nervous wreck, trying to explain things well and making several mistakes. After a while though, I became more comfortable with what I was doing.

I didn't have a plan, and kind of wandering around and teaching people different things randomly (which I thought were important to me when I was learning) was only so helpful. I haven't been able to teach people how to successfully write in hiragana or katakana, which is essential to learning Japanese entirely. Most people don't appear to be up to it at the moment, and I still want to get around that.

Over winter break, I created a website to help distribute information to people in the class: I posted information about hiragana, vocabulary, as well as several key aspects of grammar.

(url = http://fajapanese.ning.com/ )

I had hoped people would use the site, but as I posted a lot of things in hiragana (because I wanted members of the club to learn vital Japanese writing) there wasn't a lot of interest in actually using it. I know I hate when teachers at this school try to over-incorperate technology every day, and here I went almost doing the same thing.

At the start of this year, I helped teach a lot more using speech, vocabulary, and some of my own designed flash cards to teach colors, simple sentences using the verb to be, introduced the use of prepositions, and thus covered more grammar in the process. From here, it is possible to learn a lot more. But I am facing three overall challenges that have really gotten in my way (which ideally I should have been able to fix myself)

1) Lack of material: I don't want my peers to spend a ton of money on books, and so I haven't gotten textbooks for them to use. So what can I teach from? I don't want to violate any copyright laws, but I think there are some resources I can probably find in the vast world of the internet I could use to fix this problem. Because although a few members of the group can pronounce the words I have said, and use the grammar correctly, they have no means to study o_o. At least not without using the website I created, where I asked members of the club to leave comments. But this requires interest, which can perhaps be stimulated by a strong program that seems promising. Great! I can do that! But...
2) Lack of time. Teaching a class is time consuming. Because I am already not a pro at managing my time, and I am a student struggling to balance (with some success and some failure) four AP classes, I am trying to get my work done and stay sane at the same time. If I could just balance all of this effectively and figure things out, that might make things easier and I could fix the first problem. But... there is also issue number three:
3) Lack of meeting time. Yes, still a time issue. But even if I did not have time to literally make perfect lessons everyday back to back, if I just had 15 minutes a day (or even three times a week) that would be much better than these scattered 45 minute periods where I have two or three a month. It's almost impossible for people to retain information under this system and impossible to cover what I want to cover. And I still have not been convinced that this is impossible.

So those are my biggest issues. I have had some success, and I think I am very good at speaking when I have a good plan. But I really think I need to turn this on its head. This project of mine needs some more of my personal time. I need to stop continuing to teach Japanese to myself and start making it a lot easier for my peers in my club to learn. I understand no one is perfect, but why not shoot for the best? I am going to get together some real material this weekend. I realized after my last club meeting that most or my peers in the class do not know how to spell the words we have been using. If they are doing that well and are this confused, some notes would really help.


For my Senior Exhibit presentation:

5 mins: Why I chose my topic

The process:
Learning, 15 mins -Pictures, books, etc
Teaching: 15 mins: Talk about what it was like and strengths and weaknesses
-- Demonstrate teaching materials