LD's Guide to Japan

Yesterday I got home from our 3-day English Summer Camp (ESC) at a center called Akoyano, which is at the foot of one of the mountains around here.  Akoyano was a very nice, beautiful place, and because it was elevated we had an amazing view of the whole town of Kurobe!  Oh, and the food was fantastic!

This was the third year that they’ve done the ESC here, and from what everyone said it was by far the most successful.  Apparently in the past years it was far less organized and this year everything was well-prepared and went very smoothly.  Activities included sports, BBQ, ice cream making, campfire games, singing songs, and several activities in English.

We had 40 students (10-11 years old) at ESC this year and divided them into 4 teams of 10, and each team was led by one ALT (Assistant Language Teacher—my official title) and one JTE (Japanese Teacher of English).  The overall theme we used this year was the 4 seasons, so each team was given a season to represent.  My team was Summer, and the kids came up with the team name: “Katsu Curry Summer Smile.”  Katsu Curry is a very common curry dish here.  ’Katsu’ is the Japanese word for ‘cutlet,’ but it’s also the verb ‘to win’ so it’s often used as a pun.

I loved my team!  They were such a rowdy and fun group of kids.  They were all a little shy on the first day (and so was I), but by day 2 we had all warmed up to each other and they wanted to do everything with me.  They taught me Japanese songs, we had staring contests, we raced, and they had a particular fascination with my beard (could not keep their hands off of it).  And at the end of camp, yesterday, my kids put on a skit IN ENGLISH and I was so proud!  They worked so hard on it and they really had a lot of fun learning some English.  I got lots of hugs at the end of camp and even though I was exhausted, I really wished it wasn’t ending so soon.

I’m so looking forward to school starting in September.