Mike's Farewell Party

Friday was Mike's last official day teaching at the Polytechnic, so we had a lunchtime "party". The students had bought flowers and gifts for Mike, and some of the students had been busy making cakes with their host families. Mike's wife made a Japanese curry dish, and our Japanese liaisons provided salad and sushi as well, so we ended up with a real feast!

Mike was really glad to receive so many gifts, and even seemed a little lost for words - very unlike him!

We are all sorry to see Mike finish, and we wish him well in his "new life" in Japan. Perhaps he will still find time occasionally to contribute to this blog??!!

Mike has been such a big presence at the Polytechnic and especially in making the C.E.E programme so successful. I know that it will be impossible to fill his boots, but I hope that I can make some small contribution towards keeping the programme running smoothly. I look forward to everyone's continued support.

I'll put some photos of the party on as soon as I can get some from the students!
Cheers
Nathan

Electrical Class

The students have been starting their engineering classes. Yesterday, Les Wong took them for their first Electrical class. It went really well and all of the students said that they enjoyed it. Today, the students had their first Computing class with Paul Admiraal. The students enjoyed getting use to computing by playing "Lightbot." The students had to move a man around squares and light light bulbs.

Here's a photo of the Electrical class.

Starting conversations

The homework for tonight was for the students to go home and try to initiate a conversation. Today is "Children's Day" in Japan, which is......... - your student will say, "oh, hey, did you know that it's Children's Day in Japan, today?"

Hopefully, you will say, "oh, no, what's that?" and then they're off!

We also looked at specific situations in the homestay where initiation by the student could happen. For example, you are drinking a cup of coffee, or you have just arrived home, or yawning.

Conversational Structure

Today, in class we learnt how to structure a conversation.

If the question is; what did you do today in Jean's class, then the format of the response should be something similar to:

General - well, today I learnt about text language

Detail - for example, emoticons and shortened language

Feelings - yeah, it was quite hard, but I could understand it in the end

Conclusion - yeah, so that's what we did, yeah - how was your day?

The students practised these conversations in pairs and then did line-ups.

Anzac Avenue's Median Strip

One aspect of life that is different in Japan and New Zealand is traffic. In Japan, it is considered that cars will look out for pedestrians at all times (heavy penalties if pedestrians are hit, despite the fact that pedestrians may be in the wrong). Therefore, I have noticed that students walk along the median strip, sometimes quite oblivious to the fact that articulated trucks and speeding cars are rushing by them on both sides. Today, Nathan and I will teach some basic traffic conventions for pedestrians.

Television dinners

Television dinners

 

A lot of the students mentioned that it was difficult to have conversations with their homestay families because their families were always watching television. Some of the students even commented that a lot of the time they would have TV dinners, or that the television would be on during dinner time. The students said that they felt awkward if they disturbed their hosts while watching television and so decided not to say anything at all. Television acts as a socially-constructed medium for controlling when conversations should begin and end. Although the homestay families do converse during the commercial breaks, the conversation is usually reduced to short, quick comments rather than lengthy discussions. Again, this is a skill that the students do not have and so they find it difficult to communicate in these commercial breaks. In terms of an interpersonal function, by switching on the television during dinner time (or leaving the television switched on), the homestay parent has indirectly appropriated the mood and modality of any conversation that takes place. Similarly, the conversation of the student and parent watching a drama on television and only speaking during the commercial breaks indicated that the student acted in the same way as the parent in this situation. In both of these circumstances the parent not only controlled who the participants were, i.e., the television and the family members, but also when and how they were to participate. To use Itakura's (2001) term, the host parents construct a "sequential dominance" over the interaction. In other words, the rules of rapport were determined by the parent, who assumed the rules were known by the student. However, as we can see from the conversations that took place when the television was an active participant, the students decided to say very little, or not speak at all. It is also important to notice that none of the students initiated any conversation at these times. As Halliday (1984) notes, the students' communicative options have been severely restricted.

 

 

Showering in the homestay

Showering in the homestay

 

One common issue that was brought up by the students was that they had trouble understanding that their homestay only had a limited amount of water to use in the shower. This meant that most of the students could only shower for about five to ten minutes. In Japan, it is normally the practice for people to wash themselves using a shower and then soak in a very hot bath for up to half an hour. The water temperature in the bath can be controlled easily by a thermostat situated near the taps and is usually set to about forty three degrees Celsius (by most New Zealand people's standards this would be just too hot). Because of this very hot soaking, people would then be able to move around the home in very loose clothing before they get into bed or retire to a warmer part of the house. Because the students couldn't soak in a bath in their New Zealand homestay, they were always complaining of having a cold shower. When the host parents were questioned about this, they said that the water was hot, but that it always went cold because the students were staying in the shower until the water went cold. It was found that the students were in fact using the shower, not just as a means to wash themselves, but as a means to get warm by trying to soak in the shower instead of the bath because this was what they were used to in Japan. This was why the shower was going cold and was the reason why there were many complaints by the homestay parents saying that their student always used up all of the hot water.

It was also found that the students would be constantly turning the water on and off many times during showering. It is the custom in Japan to firstly quickly rinse oneself with warm to hot water using the shower and then turn the water off. Secondly, people soap up a washcloth and then wash themselves while the water is turned off. Thirdly, the shower (or small bucket filled with water) is turned on and is used to wash the soap off. The next step might be to turn the water off again and proceed to wash another part of the body, for example, hair or face. Again, the same procedure is used – the water is constantly turned off and on. The problem here is that in a typical New Zealand house where a hot water tank is used, it takes a bit of time for the water coming out of the taps to warm up. This is why the students often complain that the shower is cold when in fact, they haven't left the hot tap on long enough for it to become warm. (Turning the shower off and on and trying to adjust the temperature is particularly difficult to do if the homestay has one cold and one hot tap.) Similarly, the term "hot" has different connotations for different people. To maintain the temperature for a long period of time in a Dunedin homestay at about forty three degrees Celcius is difficult. The water would quickly be used up.

 

Today's English Class

Well, it was a great class today.

The students did all of their enrollment and other bits and pieces. They went to Unipol and played games for about 40 minutes. I think that they had a good time, but they looked quite tired by the end of it.

In the English class, we learnt to use people's names.

For example: Student(S): Hi, Mike, I'm home.
Host mother(HM): Oh, hi, Yusuke, did you have a good day?

(S): Yes, today, I played at Unipol and it was good fun. Um, I'm just going to change me clothes, but um, yeah, I'll come back soon. See you soon.

The students learnt how to safely (politely) excuse themselves, but say that they would like to continue the conversation soon. We have also taught the students that a simple response to the question "did you have a good day" is not just "good, thanks," but rather an invitation to say what they did during the day.

We also said that it was the students' responsibility to be the first one to greet their homestay parents, and not vice-versa.

It was a packed English class, so I don't know if everything went it. In the end, I said, a simple smile and a look as though you are trying to communicate goes a long way to communicating a lot.

We'll pick up practising the conversations tomorrow.

Best of luck with hosting your student, and if there is anything that you would like to share then please comment here or send me a personal email, so that we can teach the whole class.

My email address is: mpryde@tekotago.ac.nz.

Cheers, Nathan and Mike

Some great graduation photos

Some more photos

Karate

Tatsuya and Ryuichiro demonstrated a "kata" -predetermined moves. They looked awesome and impressed everyone with their powerful moves and shouts.

Graduation Photos

It was a great graduation. These are some photos from the homestay graduation on Wednesday the 10th of March, 2010. Everybody had a good time and the students presented their experiences really well. There were quite a few laughs with some of the photos, which also helped the students relax a bit and enjoy their graduation even more. A big "Thank you" to all who helped make the evening a wonderful occasion!!

Cadbury World

Today, the students enjoyed a tour around the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. They received lots of chocolates, but I don't think that they liked the liquid chocolate. I think that they thought it was too sweet!!

St Clair Beach

What a great way to spend a hot day!!

Organ Pipes

It was a lovely day to go to the organ pipes on Mt. Cargill today. For those who don't know, the organ pipes are long cylindrical looking pillars of rock that have the appearance of organ pipes. We drove to the quarry, where the carpark was and walked for about 15 minutes up hill to get to them. Since we had some time we then walked up to the transmitter station on the very top of Mt. Cargill. All of the students did the walk very well, but I think that they were all relieved to get back to the car and rest. Another great experience that the students will remember, I'm sure!

Chingford Park Team Building Activities

Today, the students left at 8:30 and did a tour of Dunedin city with the A block OP engineering students. We practised short, friendly and funny conversational openings and I could hear the students saying some of them. Mainly, these openings took the form of "gidday mate, how's it going?" and "great day for it" etc.

After the city tour the students all went to Chingford Park in North East Valley and did some team building activities. These games involved trying to get all of your team members over an imaginary electric fence by just using a plank of wood, going through an invisible maze, riding a bicycle along some unbalanced planks, making bridges to walk on, etc. The activities started around 10am and broke for a BBQ at about 12:30, then continued on until about 2:30. The weather held out, so all in all I think that it was a great day.

I plan to talk about the activities and experiences that the students had tomorrow in English class from 10-12.

TOEIC

The students did another TOEIC test last Friday (12th Feb) and the average was 629!!

This was a great achievement. The top score was 810, followed by 800. The lowest score was 450, which is still pretty awesome!!!

Cricket

The students had a really great time playing cricket today at Logan Park. We used a couple of practise cricket balls (not too hard) and played on the artificial turf. The students all said that they enjoyed the experience and some of them are practising outside the classroom as I'm writing this, now. They have to straighten their arms when they bowl - a lot of the students are bending and then throwing the ball - just like baseball I suppose (ha ha).

We're also getting ready for graduation on the 10th and 12th of March. The students are preparing their presentations and also writing about their NZ experiences for the graduation book. Here's a photo that I'm thinking of putting in the book.

Back again!!

Well, the English only classes have finished and the students are settling back into doing some engineering. This morning we went to Stewarts Coffee Factory and the Greenman Beer Factory (don't worry, they didnt' have anything to drink!).

Both of the factories were really informative and gave the students a look at some local talent.

Tomorrow, we're going to be going out onto Logan Park and playing some cricket. The students have already said that they find cricket boring, but nobody has actually played it - I hope that they change their attitude from tomorrow.

There is a video conference with KTC this Friday from 1-3ish, so there is no class in the morning. It is going to be open day at KTC, so any prospective students and parents will be having a look at how classes are taught here at the Poly. The students in KTC will also be asking questions to the students here. This is a very interactive time for both KTC and OP. I hope that it goes well.

The students are also doing well with their English. The TOEIC average score for the test last Friday was 561. This is the highest so far and still with 4 more tests to go!!

I'm also going to be planning a trip to Cadbury's factory in the next week, so I'll keep you posted about this.

The Reality

At this time a lot of the students are thinking about returning to Japan. For a lot of them this can be quite a difficult and challenging time. This is because when the students first come here they have expectations of being able to speak English fluently when they leave. For many, this is quite unrealistic and I think that students are now starting to realise this. The students also base their English ability on the TOEIC test. Again, students have expectations of getting very high marks at the end of the year. Although, last Friday's test had the best average for the class so far (561) it also emphasised that what students expected their scores to be by the end of the programme is beginning to fade into an unrealistic goal. Consequently, some of the students will be feeling down. However, this is part of the process that the students go through into trying to (unconsciously) readjust or reacculturate themselves back into their Japanese culture.
I intend to have individual interviews with all of the students over the next week as well as discuss some of these issues in class on a more general basis. If your student is feeling a bit disparate at this time, then the reason above may be why. It would really good if you have any concerns about your student to inform Anna, Keiko, Yoko, or Yvonne. I will also try my best to address these issues.
Talk to you soon, Michael