business trip

Monday and Tuesday we had a conference in Niigata for all the JETs in our prefecture. There were a couple boring speeches and useless workshops but on the whole I was impressed. There was some valuable info and some new ideas that I am excited to try. Went to a session on teaching phonics and I was surprised to learn that most of the world learned to read without phonics. I suppose I lived in my bubble that was JHS and have know nothing different. Anyhow, I think Japanese students should learn phonics rather than rote memorization because their pronunciation is atrocious and they tend to rely on a system of symbols they have called katakana which does not allow a consonant to exist without a vowel so they are always adding vowels onto everything ex "and" is "ando". Anyhow, it was a nice opportunity to see everyone and meet some new people.

The boys in our hotel lobby somewhat inappropriately named Hotel Rich.

We ate at a Japanese restaurant before going out on the Monday. This sign was near the door. The horrible English is quite common place in Japan.

There was a party at Shame that night to raise money for the musical. The theme was schoolboy/ school girl ...I guess our turn to be Japanese students. I am such a sucker for dressing up and not many did so I won a prize.