Being an ALT #11: Getting Molested at School

If you have any experience with Japanese culture, you may well have come across kancho, which is just one example of the level of personal invasion which is widely practiced by school children (and many adults).

This week we'll talk about the top 3 ways you are likely to be sexually harassed by students in class.

I have no idea why this is socially acceptable, but the amount of same-sex molestation in Japan is astronomical. Last week (in a regular bar) I watched a man get ridden by his friend while another acquaintance groped in between his butt-cheeks. In fact, he was ridden so hard and for so long that the poor guy had some kind of reaction start in his pants which made the whole table of men (and one woman) laugh for hours. I've also had the unpleasant experience of having my arse-crack "wiped" while singing karaoke, as well as being prodded in the wang innumerable times. These are just a couple of examples. However, no Japanese person would dream of calling this kind of behaviour in any way "gay".

School is a breeding ground for this at all age levels, so watch out! Here are the big three:

3. Booby Touch

Pretty self explanatory. Let's be clear about this: Japanese boobs are usually pretty small. A glance at the bras in most shops will show that not only are they very small cup-sizes, but it's virtually impossible to find any without padding inside to make the most of that little bit of meat. 

Expect everyone to be amazed by your breasts if they're bigger than an A (partly due to the same stereotype as Western men having big penises). Boys will stare, girls will touch. And as with number 2, teachers will do it too.

2. Groin Grab

I get this all the time (I'm a man), and my female friends have also had it several times (though it seems limited to same-sex attempts). The clue is in the name. Intensity ranges from poking to groping. I have also had this at enkais, where other teachers (and sometimes parents) will try to test the "gaijin have massive dongs" theory.

1. Kancho

For those who don't know, kancho is the forced penetration of someone's anus by another's index and middle fingers. Thankfully, it's usually only performed clothed, but the plus points end there.

It's a fast and hard movement carried out when (almost always a boy) leaves themselves open to it by bending over, or simply standing still (a bit like slapping a woman's backside, right fellas?). It can be incredibly painful if landed correctly (my friend confesses to having made a boy bleed in his youth).

As a teacher, you are just as likely to get kancho'd as most of the students, so you'd better make your distaste for it clear from the start.

Female teachers are less likely to be kancho'd than male, but that doesn't mean you're 100% safe, or that you won't play victim to some of the other touchy-feely games.

Being an ALT series: 

Part #1: Teaching English in Japan 

Part #2: Your Role

Part #3: A Typical Day

Part #4: Planning Classes 

Part #5: Getting Drunk on Duty (the Enkai) 

Part #6: 4 Japanese Teachers You May Have to Work With

Part #7: Physical Resources

Part #8: Making Activities

Part #9: Hopping Between Schools

Part #10: More School Hopping

Part #11: Getting Molested At School

Part #12: It Is Really This Easy?

Part #13: Brushing Your Teeth At School

High Quality Kettlebells Now Available

For those of you who practice the macho art of kettlebell lifting, I have some wonderful news.

A friend of mine over at Japan Kettlebell Club has just received a shipment of custom-made, pro-grade kettlebells in the Tokyo area. He can ship all across Japan for a couple of thousand yen.

He has weights ranging from 8kg up to 32kg. Stocks are limited, so get in on it now.

Go to his Gaijin Kettlebell blog here.

Type Cool Icons with the Japanese IME

If you've skimmed over many message boards or blogs in Japanese, you may notice some users adding cute little symbols to their sentences, like little stars (★), musical notes (♪), or umbrellas (☂). These symbols are part of the Unicode character set, and with the help of this guide, you'll be able to type them, too!


There are a few methods for writing these symbols. Today we'll start with the easiest method, which is learning the Japanese terms for symbols predefined in the default Windows conversion dictionary. (Was that a mouthful? I mean to say, "We'll tell you a bunch of the symbols you can write from your Japanese without having to do anything technical.")

This guide assumes you are using Windows as your operating system. However, the same icons should be available regardless of your operating system, as long as the font you are using supports them. Linux and Mac systems have character palettes, too, and their IMEs can be "taught" how to type these characters from defined keystrokes, too.

Anyway, on to the main course:

Predefined Symbols
For starters, some of these symbols are already programmed into the Japanese IME.
If you type the word for "star" in Japanese, ほし, then push spacebar to convert it, you'll find that not only is the kanji for star, 星, available, but so are the icons ★ and ☆, among others.

Here is a list of some simple predefined symbols in Windows' IME dictionary.
Just typing the hiragana on the left should create the symbol(s) on the right!

Type in:	To get these icons!
やじるし	↑　→　↓　←　⇔　⇒
ほし	☆　★　＊　※
まる	●　○　◎　㊥　㊨　①  etc.
しかく	■　◆　□　◇
さんかく	▲　▼　△　▽　∴　∵
おんぷ	♪
にょろ	～
ゆうびん	〒
あまり	…
おす	♂
めす	♀
おなじ	々　ゝ　ゞ　ヾ　〃
すうがく	＝　≠　±　∞　∑　√　etc.
かぶしきがいしゃ	㈱　㏍
へいせい	㍻
でんわ	℡
たんい	％　€　℃　㌔　㍍　㎡ etc.
きごう	hundreds of symbols

This list is not comprehensive, by the way. There are dozens of other words recorded into the default Windows IME dictionary and linked to symbols as well as kanji. This is just a taste of some interesting or useful commands. Here is one much more comprehensive (and overwhelming) list of symbols for those interested.

And, as mentioned before, if you aren't using Windows, or if you are using a different version of Windows (this list is current for Vista and 7, using the Office IME 2007), some of the words here may not produce the same symbols as shown above.

Next time, we'll talk about a couple ways to access all symbols in the Unicode character set, whether they've been programmed into the IME or not. Stay tuned!

WS: Eigo Noto 2: Lesson 1

Eigo Noto is a set of two textbooks for 5th and 6th grade elementary students for whom English has just become a compulsory subject. I teach 6th grade using Eigo Noto 2 and have been frustrated at the lack of materials out there, and by the fact that the teachers' book is almost all Japanese. Not much use for me!

I will be writing up my lesson plans here on AccessJ throughout the year in the hope that it can be of some help to other elementary teachers out there. 

Lesson 1

Greeting - Hello, how are you. Wow you can understand me!

Self introduction

My name - guess how to spell my name

Age - guess my age

"Laura likes/doesn't like" speech.

"Laura likes" bingo

For the guessing, I write 3 options on the board and have the students choose, or the students just yell at me until someone gets the right answer!.

"Laura likes" Bingo

You can download a version of this sheet here.

I gave the students a 4x4 grid with each square divided in two by a diagonal line.

Each square had 2 pictures in. Very simple vocabulary (cat, rabbit, sushi, football etc)

The students had to choose which thing I like from the two options in each square.

They did this by circling one.

Next, they asked me (  ) or (  ). This only involves practicing the vocabulary on the sheet and "or".

I tell them which I like - if they chose the right one, O, if they chose the other item, X

The student with the most bingos is the winner.

Lesson 1 "That`s right"

ABC song 

The students should be very familiar with the ABC song. I started by singing this 2 or 3 times.

Interactive white board 

I had arrived early and prepared a laptop with the Eigo Noto CD rom and the interactive white board. All schools should have one. Having someone who knows how to use it is another story. If you choose to use it arrive VERY early and give yourself time to get familiar with it.

Page 4/5 is a picture of a town setting with capital letters hidden throughout. I had chosen one student to come to the white board and click on the letters in the correct order (one student clicked on one letter). The students could find them in the textbook and raise their hand to volunteer.

If you don't have access to an interactive white board you can print a poster sized copy of the page and get students to colour the letter.

Karuta 

Students are in groups with one set of cards spread on the floor/table, depending on your classroom set up. The teacher shouts out a letter and students grab it.

I like to get the winning student to hold up the card and say the letter. They must keep shouting it and holding it up until I give them the OK. 

TIP - ask the teacher to have the students prepare the cards before the lesson. If they are not prepared get the students to cut one set per group. Having all students cut all cards would take forever!! And if you are in an 'English room' not a usual classroom then remember to ask the teacher to bring scissors!

Finish

My schools require a feedback sheet to be completed by the students after the lesson.

However I never have time for this! I usually just end with a goodbye and wave them off showering them in highfives trying to get them out before the next group arrives!

Post-Earthquake Changes to ETC Prices in Japan

In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and it's enormous toll on government and individuals alike, expressway toll prices (including ETC card prices) are being overhauled in Japan--again. The result is a general increase in the price of automobile travel. We'll explain exactly what changes and how expensive travel will be after the change below.

Click here for our post on how to calculate your highway tolls in advance.

First off, here's what's different:

1. Elimination of the 1000 yen cap on weekend and holiday travel
2. Reinstatement of normal fares on regional stretches of road previously made free by the 高速道路無料化社会実験 ("toll-free expressway trial," or "toll-free expressway social experiment.")
3. Abortion of the proposed 2000 yen cap on weekday travel.

Because of these changes, ETC prices after midnight on July 20, 2011 will be as follows for normal size vehicles (普通車) and light vehicles (軽自動車):

1. Extant weekday discounts will continue to apply.
1. Travel during commuting hours (6:00-9:00 and 17:00-20:00) not exceeding 100 km once per day will still be discounted 50%. It will still be possible to (ab)use multiple ETC cards in a row to get this 50% discount over longer stretches of road.
2. Travel beginning or ending at night (22:00-24:00) will be discounted by 30%.
3. Travel beginning or ending from late night to early morning (0:00-4:00) will be discounted by 50%.
2. Travel on weekends and national holidays will be discounted by 50% all day.

If you happened to have your primary residence in an earthquake-affected region and drive as part of your job (as in, you ship things in a 5,000kg or heavier vehicle), it is also possible to apply for a pass which will allow you to enter and exit the expressway for free from June 20, 2011 until June 19, 2012.

Tokyo says that the extra revenue from this change will go towards helping out post-earthquake recovery efforts.  However, some citizens seem to feel that the earthquake just offered a convenient opportunity for opponents of the travel discounts to pull the plug on them.

As always, we welcome and comments or questions below.

Mobile Phone Guide #1: Basics

Today begins Access J’s latest installment featuring a comprehensive guide to purchasing your very own mobile phone. If you are fresh off the boat or just curious about the local market, have no fear, we have you covered.

Japan has long been a land known for its extravagant mobile phones, replete with GPS, high-spec cameras, extra large screens, and all sorts of doo-dads. What's more, the Japanese mobile phone market is possibly one of the most unique and (some might argue) isolated markets in the world. Japanese phones (携帯電話), or keitai denwa (often shortened to simply 携帯 keitai) utilize many features not found in many other parts of the world and, therefore, are largely unusable outside of the Japanese market. Some big differences are:

•   Japanese phones are almost always “SIM-locked” meaning that if you change carriers you must change phones and bringing your own phone is a no-no. Kind of inconvenient, but limits phone-theft, amongst other things.

• There are several competing technologies used by the big mobile networks, not all of which are global standards.

• The use of mobile web, e-mail, and applications (which we will cover later) is almost ubiquitous, so much so that phone e-mail is used instead of traditional short text messaging

Since landlines are expensive—although thanks to fiber optics, this is changing—and the mobile phone is the nexus of socialization in Japan, you should, like, probably get one. Or you could just do what one of our other writers did and rely on your girlfriend to do all the social networking for you, until she gets sick of it.

Major Mobile Phone Providers in Japan

Company	Technology	Subscribers	Pre-paid?
NTT DoCoMo	WCDMA 2.1ghz	58.01 million	no
au	CDMA 800mhz	33 million	yes (limited access)
Softbank	WCDMA 2.1ghz	25.41 million	yes
Wilcom	PHS 1.4ghz	3.75 million	no
E Mobile	WCDMA 1.7ghz	3.12 million	no

First and foremost, there are three main phone companies used by most Japanese: NTT DoCoMo, au, and Softbank. These carriers cover pretty much the whole country and even the country side is well serviced my most providers, although NTT DoCoMo is particularly renown for its high level of coverage. NTT DoCoMo has long been the dominant provider although recent competition from rivals has brought down its commanding lead. Thanks in part to its status as the exclusive iPhone provider, Softbank (formally Vodafone Japan) has been stealing away customers at a relatively fast clip.

The other two remaining providers are Wilcom and E Mobile, both of which service relatively specialized areas. Wilcom caters to business with free in-network calling and low cost, simple to use handsets while E Mobile focuses on reselling its radio spectrum to 3^rd parties and mobile computer broadband users. Both companies have coverage that focuses almost exclusively on big cities. At time of writing Softbank has been in talks to acquire a majority share in Wilcom as the company has been losing customers at rapid pace and its financial stability is questionable.

Unlike Europe, where most companies use a technology called GSM and its more advanced cousin, W-CDMA, Japan has several standards in play, all mutually incompatible. This means that your handset is effectively tied to your carrier and even if you pop the SIM out, you are still out of luck. Moreover, even though Softbank and NTT DoCoMo use the same technology on the same frequency they have no roaming agreements that allow you to “borrow” or roam on a rival network where there is no native service and their phones are fixed to a specific company branded SIM. To add to the confusion, E Mobile uses the same technology but on a different radio band, requiring special phones. au, on the other hand, uses CDMA technology which is rarely used outside of the US, Canada, and Korea. However, this particular brand of CDMA uses a unique frequency combination and cannot be used internationally unless a specific world phone is purchased. NTT DoCoMo and Softbank utilize a relatively global standard and radio frequency that allows for international roaming (although some older W-CDMA phones by DoCoMo are incapable of roaming due to hardware quirks). Confused yet? Don’t worry it gets better….kind of…

Stay tuned to AccessJ for our upcoming installments where we will show you how to go about purchasing a phone at your local shop as well as the ins and outs of a typical Japanese mobile phone plan and even how to use your fancy new phone to socialize with all your friends! Part two arrives crisp and new next Friday.


Other Mobile Phone posts:

1. Mobile Number Portability


2. Requesting an MNP Reservation Number 

Other posts in this series:

Part #1: The Basics

Part #2: Important Paperwork

Part #3: Pre-Paid Phones
Part #4: Post-Paid Phones 
Part #5: Paying Your Bills

Part #6: Mobile E-mail Guide

Part #7: Multi-Lingual Phones

Part #8: Renting and Roaming

The Best Way to Learn Hiragana and Katakana

If you've been put off learning Japanese by the complexity of the script, then here's some good news: it's not actually that hard! Well, the two basic alphabets aren't. Kanji will always be daunting due to the amount, but kana will get you most of the way through the language.

If you have the time and patience, both hiragana and katakana can be done in a day or two.

I don't believe in the slow and painful methods some people recommend for learning these Japanese characters. They aren't complicated enough to require pictorial stories to memorise.

My solution is simple: www.realkana.com (just to clarify: we get no money for you clicking this link)

It's an unbeatable flashcard-style site covering both alphabets. It requires the user to type a response to a kana syllable on screen. Very simple, but completely effective. You don't need to buy any books or other resources.

Here's how I learned hiragana and katakana in six and four hours respectively:

1. Select five characters to study.
2. Study them until you make no mistakes at all.
3. Deselect those five and select the next five.
4. Learn them.
5. Study the second set of five together with the first.
6. Deselect those ten and select the next five.
7. Study those three sets together.
8. Repeat until you're studying all the characters at once and not making any mistakes.

It sounds simple enough, and if you can concentrate for a long period of time it will work beautifully. Of course, you don't have to learn them all in a day, or a week. Even five minutes a day will get you there eventually, and the rewarding feeling of being able to read something so alien to your first language will keep you going.

And that's that. No need for geeky posters or flashcard sets. After you've memorised them it's just a matter of practising. Read things in kana (even if you don't understand the meaning) whenever you can, and always write in kana when you study. 

You'll find katakana more difficult to remember in the real world because it's used so much less, so put extra time into that.

The same people made a site called www.realkanji.com, but I can't recommend that as highly as the realkana. Kanji requires a whole game plan to study and memorise. Stay tuned for that guide soon.

Being an ALT #10: More School Hopping

In the last installment of our Being an ALT series, we discussed how some ALT jobs cover more than one school and how hopping between schools can affect your experience as a teacher in Japan. This time we'll continue that discussion and look particularly at how an ALT's time is split between multiple schools and the ways that can increase or decrease your workload.

School Politics

If you are a shared resource between schools, you can bet that every one of your schools is out to get its fair share of your time. When you ask for time off from work at one school, you may be asked why you can't take a day off from the other school instead. On the other hand, if you manage things well, it will seem to any given school that you haven't asked for many days off at all.

At the beginning of each school year, determining annual calendars of what days you'll visit each school and trading or rescheduling days to make sure each school's total count stays equal are also part of the multi-school ALT adventure.

Finally, if you work at rivaling schools, you may find yourself having to choose between school festivals or enkai parties to attend, and you will be occasionally asked awkward questions by faculty about which school you think is better. (Perhaps an English teacher might even ask you this last question during a lesson, which you'll then get to handle, impromptu, in front of the students... ahem...)

Scheduling Loopholes

On the other side of schools fighting to make sure they each get you for their one-hundred-and-sixteen days per year (or whatever your number of days happens to be), being a multi-school ALT means you'll occasionally find yourself at the mercy of an unintended scheduling conflict. Your schools may have slightly different summer or winter holiday dates, or test days, or demo lesson days, or PTA conference days. This can work out in your favor with an extra few days of summer vacation, or it could work in the other direction, such as two English demo lessons in the same week or paying for two enkais instead of one.

Planning Classes

If your JTEs are well-organized, they'll be able to tell you a week in advance what classes you're going to be teaching and at what point the students will be in their studies. But, not all JTEs are on the ball with this. You may not know in advance what you will be doing next time you come to a certain school. This can manifest as a rushed Monday morning in which you are told last minute what you'll be doing in the day's first class. When you don't have all your materials with you (see next point), it can be a real mental strain.

Doubled Materials

Another tough part of the multi-school environment is maintaining your teaching materials. In short, if you want to have the materials you create available for you to teach with, you'll have to truck them around in your bag each day you change schools. Your desk may not feel like "your" desk, because it'll be inconvenient to store things in it, and if you commute by car your car may become a portable desk instead. If you commute by bicycle or public transportation, you may just have to lug around an obnoxiously heavy bag on your commute.

Along similar lines, if one school issues you a laptop, you probably won't be able to take that computer with you to use at other schools. Schools may quip about you bringing your own laptop into work. And very security-paranoid schools may even frown on your popping USB drives in and out of their computers. (But, honestly, that's a little extreme. If you explain openly that it's the only reasonable way to keep your materials together across workplaces, it should work out all right.)

On the plus side, you'll be able to get twice as much mileage out of any material you create: Multiple schools means more chances to do lessons with students of the same grade level. This means you can reuse materials you've already prepared and develop your ideas and lesson delivery through repetition. Repeating the same lesson twice (or more!) is one of the best ways to hone your in-class explanations and become a better teacher. A lot of the bullet points here have been negative, but to be honest, this point alone makes teaching at multiple schools worth the hassle!

So in summary, don't let the negative aspects of a multi-school job put you off. As an ALT you'll have all the same opportunity to get involved (just show your teachers that you want to be!), and the broader experience you gain from working with different sets of students and coworkers more than makes up for the smaller annoyances. Take our points here as warnings you can use to prepare yourself for the job, rather than letting them stress you out when you find them out alone. Enjoy your new job!

Being an ALT series: 

Part #1: Teaching English in Japan 

Part #2: Your Role

Part #3: A Typical Day

Part #4: Planning Classes 

Part #5: Getting Drunk on Duty (the Enkai) 

Part #6: 4 Japanese Teachers You May Have to Work With

Part #7: Physical Resources

Part #8: Making Activities

Part #9: Hopping Between Schools

Part #10: More School Hopping

Part #11: Getting Molested At School

Part #12: It Is Really This Easy?

Part #13: Brushing Your Teeth At School

WS: "He/She Was and They/We Were (Not)" 2nd G JHS

This is a game using was, was not, were and were not. It's a variation of a classic ALT activity which has been kicking around for decades. All the versions I've found elsewhere look like they were designed on a 1980s word processor, so I've completely remade it from scratch. The game is called Hello Kitty Murder.

This can be played with any number of students above 10, and works best with 2nd grade junior high.

First, ham up a terrible story of Hello Kitty being kidnapped/murdered. Next, give out one character card to every student.

Here are 40 character cards for that.

Students stand up and find a partner, janken, and the winner must ask each a series of questions:

1. Where were you yesterday?
2. What time were you there?
3. What were you doing there?

Students respond with

1. I was (at Kappa Sushi).
2. I was there (at 12pm).
3. I was (reading a newspaper)

There are answers using both the positive and negative ("was not eating sushi" etc).

The responses are taken down as memos on the answer sheet.

Here is the answer sheet.

Students cannot deduce who did the kidnapping with the hints alone, so during or at the end of the game announce that you have heard more from the police - the location, time etc. You can increase the tension by making the hints broader, such as "it happened between 1 and 3pm", "it was in a sushi place" (there are several different sushi places on the cards.

I make the criminals two characters working together, and abuse them with "why???"s at the end. Ham it up before and after for best results.

You might be left with a damp finish after that (doesn't feel right to just end it there). If that's the case, award the students one point for each interview they conducted, and five points if the interviewed the murderer. Give stickers or something.


If you want to speed it up a bit, make the questions more specific - instead of asking the time and place, students choose one time (of two) and ask what the interviewee was doing then: "what were you doing yesterday at 12". This way they can ask more people in the same time.