Polestar November 2018 by Polestar

POLESTAR HOKKAIDO

NOVEMBER 2018

Table of Contents President’s Corner 4 Events with HAJET 5 First Year Rep : Hi Friends! 6 Interview : A SEA What? 8 Motivating Your Students: Your Culture Through Their Eyes 10 Around the ’Do: Fukushima 12 Gallery 14

Photo by Ted Jones Cover photo by Ahraun Chambliss Design by Andrew Gerber

Note From The Editor: Once again, thank you for taking the time to check out this month’s Polestar! This year’s winter has had a peculiar start, to say the least. Sapporo had it’s latest first snow for the first time in 128 years, and I’m sure many other towns and cities across Hokkaido were in similar situations. Luckily (or unluckily), the snow has begun to fall and winter has finally started. Personally, I’m a big fan of winter out here. There’s always a plethora of outdoor activities to indulge in, and if that’s not your thing, you have a perfect reason to stay indoors – it’s darn cold outside. I’m not particularly sure if it’s just me, but the months of October and November were the busiest I’ve been since coming to Hokkaido. But, having the HAJET Fall meeting and SDC within a couple of weeks of each other was nice, as we had plenty of opportunities to mingle and connect with fellow ALTs. For those of you who didn’t come to the HAJET meeting, please try to come to the winter meeting! It is being scheduled for the end of February, and will be awesome. Even if you’re not a HAJET member, you’re welcome to join! (membership does have its benefits though) Anyways, I look forward to working on next month’s issue, and hope that many of you are looking forward to reading it!

—A lex R eyes

President’s Corner Hello again good people of Hokkaido, Welcome back to the President’s Corner. As the leaves fall off the trees and winter finally makes its long awaited appearance, I close my eyes, think about all the soft, fluffy snow that is to come and I say to myself. “Nope.” So this article is going to be about vacationing, particularly about going back to one’s home country, which I am conveniently doing during the second half of November. Some of this will apply to travelling to other places, but I want to focus more on the emotional aspect of returning home rather than travel tips and the like. If any of you are thinking of returning home for the holidays, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. First, is that the so-called “honeymoon period” will be ending around this time. This means that the everyday items, places and even people may lose that new feeling around this time, and issues that you glossed over in the beginning may be increasingly harder to ignore. Second, make sure you take the right days off. Christmas isn’t a national holiday here, and due to the earthquake, you might find that classes have been extended quite a bit, so be sure to double-check with your schools and BoE what days you’re expected to work (even if they’re just BoE days). Third, have fun. That’s an understatement, but try not to get too caught up in shopping for souvenirs and actually enjoy yourself. Fourth, be ready to say goodbye for a 2nd time. This is the part that many people forget about. But if, for example, leaving was hard

on your parents the first time, chances are it won’t be much easier the second time. Keep these things in mind and you’ll have nothing to worry about. That’s all out of me this time around; I’ll be sure to take my own advice. Feel free to contact me at anytime (even during my trip) if you want to talk about travel. Keep Hokkaido safe while I’m gone, okay? Good. Until next time, —Devan Hawkins

RIGHT ► Top row: HAJET Fall Meeting photos by Nivedh Sreejit Bottom three rows: HAJET Funded Chippubetsu Halloween Event An event held in the town of Chippubetsu celebrating Halloween for the children. The event included a haunted house, 6 Halloween type games, make your own trick or treat bags, face painting, a photo booth, and trick or treating. photos by Natalie Chu

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First-Year Representative

r F i H

! s d n e i

Hello fellow northerners! If I haven’t met you yet, my name is Jacqueline Witwicki and I was recently elected as the First Year Rep. on the HAJET Prefectural Counsel. And if I have met you... my name is still Jacqueline Witwicki! Crappy jokes aside, I teach elementary and middle school in Nakatombetsu, way way up north in the Soya region. If you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods, feel free to stop on in! Nakaton may seem like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but I’ve already found a couple hidden gems! One thing that has jumped out at me about life in Japan thus far, is the emphasis on hobbies. From Kendo to Karaoke, you name it, there’s a club for it. And therein lies my personal strategy to ward off the winter blues. I was in my high school’s marching band, like a good number of you most likely were. I had a lot of fun, but I was never a flute virtuoso. Fast forward four years, and I find out there’s a community band in my town, comprised mostly of other young people. I didn’t hesitate to ask my folks to dig my flute

out of the closet, blow off the dust, and ship it to me. I’m still not a flute virtuoso, but every week I get to look forward to doing something I enjoy with a group of people that, while different from me, share a similar love for music. This has also done wonders to help me connect with students of mine who have similar interests. Since then, I’ve been able to attend several of their band performances and appreciate the hard work they put in, without needing to understand any complex Japanese. Will this local involvement be enough to help me keep the wild dragon of SAD at bay? Only time will tell. But in the event that I do struggle this winter, I know that I now have a great local community, along with the awesome community I’ve found in HAJET, to help and support me. I’d love to be a resource, in any way, to my fellow first years. So if you ever need anything, whether it’s advice about looking to fund an international event, recontracting, or resources to manage Seasonal Affective Disorder,

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Jacqueline Witwicki photos also by Jacqueline Witwicki

let me know! If I can’t help you, I can definitely work with you to find resources and people that can. I cannot recommend finding something that you love and using it to get involved in your communities enough. Also be aware that you’ll always have HAJET as a resource, which is full of people going through the same struggles, joys, and experiences. Never be afraid to reach out to myself or your fellow HAJET members. Chances are, regardless of what you’re going through, one of us has been there and would be happy to help. Until next time, I’ll be working on winterizing my car and huddling under my kotatsu with my secret cat, Ziggy, mentally preparing for our first real snowfall. Take care!

Ziggy

—Jacqueline Witwicki

Interview

with

Matt Kim

a SEA what?

1. May you give a brief intro about yourself? I’m 25 years old, from America (Portland, Oregon), and have been living in Higashikawa for over a year now. I enjoy sports, of course, as well as hanging out with my friends, watching TV, playing video games, snowboarding, and many other things.

2. Where are you placed / Where did you request to be placed? I am placed in Higashikawa, and I didn’t get to choose a preference during my application. Since a specific city will put in a request for an SEA for a certain sport, we get located wherever the demand for the job is.

3. Many of us JETs have heard of and may know a SEA, but what exactly do SEAs do? There are currently only 10 SEAs in Japan, so there isn’t an exact protocol for what is intended from SEAs. My job is to help out with practices and games for the Higashikawa youth baseball program. That can mean anything from leading drills, filling in where help is needed, to just sitting back and waiting to give advice to the kids. But other SEAs have very different duties. Some are brought in to start a sports program in a sport that the town they live in has no knowledge of. For example, Higashikawa used to have a cross country ski SEA, because they were working on starting their XC ski program.

4. Was the application process any different than that of an ALT’s or CIR’s? Yeah, there were differences. I saw there was a job opening for an American baseball coach on the JET Program website. You needed certain requirements, like baseball experience, coaching experience, etc. But other than that, it was pretty standard in terms of applying for a job. I applied, got an interview, interviewed at my local Japanese consulate, got the job, and now I’m here!

5. As a SEA, what is your primary focus when working with your kids? My primary focus has been shifted to make sure they’re having fun. I’ve noticed that Japan puts so much emphasis on discipline and repetition in any extracurricular club. So I wanted to bring a bit of the youth sports that I remember. I like to incorporate competitions and games into my practice drills, so the kids want to practice. I can see that they’re enjoying it, and it makes practice fly by!

6. What sports are SEAs involved with? At the moment, we’ve got me doing baseball, my friend Kuba coaching volleyball in Higashikawa, three people coaching field hockey, two people coaching rugby, two people coaching track, and one person coaching rowing. So ten people total.

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7. Do you feel that SEAs are underrepresented despite sports being an excellent method to foster communication? I think that SEAs are underrepresented. With the 2020 olympics coming up, I think that many towns could bring in a foreign representative to show that sports can break cultural barriers.

8. If you could change positions right now, would you choose to be an ALT or CIR? ALT. I’m nowhere near fluent enough to be a CIR!

Random but still Pertinent Questions 1. Are there SEA rivalries?? No rivalries here. At least not that I know of. We get together every year in Tokyo for the SEA midyear conference, and it’s an awesome bunch of people. But then again, for there to be rivalries, you have to be playing the same sport. So maybe the field hockey or the rugby guys will start up some trash talk if their teams happen to play each other!

2. What’s the most difficult situation you’ve found yourself in while at work? The most difficult times I have are when I have to scold the kids. My Japanese isn’t good enough to yell at them without making mistakes (which would just make it funny instead). And they don’t know enough English for me to use it effectively. It always leaves me in a tough position.

3. Most funny? The funniest experience I’ve had on the job is when we play the end of season, fathers vs players game. The name is pretty self-explanatory, and it’s a blast. You can tell which fathers played baseball, and which ones probably played a different sport. And there a lot of impressive plays. But, there are a lot of embarrassing errors that can be really funny. ■

photos by Matt Kim

Kyle Willits

Motivating Your Students

Your Culture Through Their Eyes

As an educator, motivation is a tricky subject to manage. This can be especially true when it comes to language learning. Many subjects taught in schools, such as math or science, all make an appearance at varying degrees in our daily lives. However, when it comes to language learning, convincing a student to learn a second language from a culture they don’t often encounter requires more effort.

First things first, let’s understand the right way to go about accomplishing motivation within our jobs. As ALTs, we’re often told our role is to “make students more excited to learn English”. This is all well and good, but that sentence looks at the issue of motivation from an incorrect perspective. For many high schools and colleges around the world, 2-4 years of foreign language study is a requirement for graduation. Students often enter these classes solely for the sake of getting their diploma and will

likely never use these languages again. Why is that? Well, partially it’s because students are taught the language but never given a better reason to learn it beyond, “it’s a requirement”. To fix this, we must reexamine how we teach. Let’s instead view our role as “making students more excited to use English”. You’ll find most EFL/ESL teachers will have a whole assortment of books and binders on the best ways to teach English. When you inquire about student motivation you’ll often be shown a handful of fun games that students enjoy and get involved

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in. Yet, this doesn’t make students more interested in English, it makes students more interested in the class or the activities. When a student leaves the classroom, or the activity is over, what happens then? When are students motivated to use English beyond these games? That’s where you come in! Currently, most research has boiled down the motivation of learning a language into two categories. The first, instrumental motivation, is somebody motivated to learn a language for some sort of personal gain like a job or a promotion. The second, integrative motivation, is the desire to learn the language to meet people or to travel. Neither type is better than another, but generally students will gravitate to one of these two types. So, what can you do? Studies show that learning about the culture of a language is one of the best motivators for wanting to use it; the good news is you’ll find many activities you have already planned can have aspects of your culture put into it. You can use these facts to influence both instrumental and integrative motivators. For example, if you have activities where students are using grammar in some fashion, try sneaking in words or facts about your culture to springboard discussion. Knowledge of food or interesting places you’ve gone to, could attract those that gravitate toward integrative motivation. Cool jobs in your hometown that maybe they could do someday, get those with integrative motivation excited. One of my favorite methods is creating various kinds of “quiz shows”. From a list of three choices (one correct and two incorrect), I have students complete a sentence about my hometown using the target grammar. When students are correct they’re

excited to have remembered a fun fact (I’ve had students get excited over why kei cars aren’t in America). If they’re wrong, the difference in their guess and the true answer is generally shocking enough to entertain them. Giving students this interesting information about you or your culture creates openings for students to speak to you and use English. They now not only speak to you as a teacher, but as a sort-of ambassador. Gradually, when they’re more comfortable you’ll likely find they begin incorporating more and more English into these moments. To give a personal example: I’ve mentioned my love of spookyghost-things to students on more than one occasion. Weeks ago, we began discussing all sorts of otherworldly objects in Japanese before class. Unbeknownst to them, however, I began using less and less Japanese and more English during these conversations. Because the students were so excited to learn about what an Ouija board was, they were more focused on the conversation with me rather than the language the conversation was happening in. We had a whole conversation in English about talking to ghosts and I’m not even sure they were aware of it. It’s a lot like fishing. You are going to need to try different bait sometimes before you can get a bite. Are you always going to be successful? Of course not! That just means you need to find another tidbit of yourself or culture to show. You’re likely the focal point of any English conversation in your student’s lives. Since you’re the door of this knowledge to your students, it’s up to you to be as open as possible for them to be interested. ■

photo by Alex Reyes

“Wait, you’re from THE Fukushima!? Like nuclear plant and radiation and all!?” “Not quite. If I were, I’d probably be part of the X-men, which would be super chill. I’m from Fukushima Town, in Hokkaido.” It amuses me seeing the baffled expressions that result from telling people where I’m from.

combined 152 students over the last two years. It always kills me to hear that the go-to hang out spots of my children are the local gym and welfare center, as there are no other public institutions like game centers, cafes, karaoke bars, and the like.

That said, Fukushima has its little charms. 「住めば都」（sumeba miyako）is a phrase that I learned from the 40 year-old barber who cuts my hair on a monthly basis. This However, unlike the infamous Fukushima Japanese proverb translates roughly to “If Prefecture, Fukushima Town (or Fukushimayou can live there, it’s home.” However, cho 福島町) is a tiny, depopulating town nestled in the southernmost tip of Hokkaido, it’s probably easier to say our English equivalent, “Home is where the heart on the left flipper of the southern Hokkaido is.” Being from Las Vegas, I was placed in whale tail. Like most depopulating towns Fukushima. How does a city boy even begin in Hokkaido, there’s nothing but Snacks to cope with a tiny town? Sure, the prospect and elderly people here, with just two ALTs serving as the representative “gaijin” for the of having no modern day luxuries like Starbs, 24/7 gas stations, movie theatres, etc. was townspeople. In this town of just over 4,000 daunting, but over time I discovered gems people over a large land area, there are a mere two conbini, one supermarket, no train that I’ve learned to treasure. Home is where the heart is and Fukushima became my new station, and a handful living-room-turnedhome. restaurants with odd hours. It’s always exciting for me to have heated, “Whose town If you somehow make it down to is more inaka?” conversations with fellow Fukushima, there are some cool things to ALTs here. see. Fukushima Town is renowned as the As the head ALT of the JHS and SHS here, I’ve been helping teach English to a

only town in all of Japan to have had two sumo Yokozuna (grand champions) born

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Fukushima

福島町

Jordan Bauzon

and raised. To commemorate this, we have a museum dedicated to these two figures, Chiyo-no-Fuji and Chiyo-no-yama. In addition, the Seikan Tunnel, the world’s longest tunnel with undersea segments connecting the mainland (Aomori) to Hokkaido (Hakodate) via shinkansen and railway, runs right below Fukushima. So of course, we have a museum dedicated to the Seikan Tunnel’s construction and technology. What Fukushima Town is most renowned for is the “Women-Only Sumo Competition” that takes place once a year on Mother’s Day in May. Every year, we see ALT competitors duking it out in sumo against burly professionals and inexperienced amateurs in fascinating and friendly matches. People come from all over Japan to cheer on the participants. It’s astounding seeing sumo, a keenly traditionally conservative Japanese

sport, welcoming not just foreigners into the ring, but also women. Maybe you’ve heard of the controversy resulting from the row where women were barred from the sumo ring when trying to save a man’s life, which made worldwide headlines last year. However, in Fukushima, women are not only allowed to set foot in the ring, but also participate in the sport. It’s comforting seeing Fukushima at the forefront of Japanese societal change in this way. photos by Jordan Bauzon

Fukushima

If you ever find yourself in the bustling port town of Hakodate, or wanting to experience the renowned hanami (cherry blossoms) and the unique castle in the neighboring town of Matsumae, definitely try to pass through Fukushima if you have the chance! Though there is little in terms of modern luxuries, there are a ton of warm, welcoming people, breathtaking nature reflecting each season, and a smorgasbord of delicious surume ika (dried squid) and ma-konbu (dried black seaweed) lining the shelves of local stores. Even getting to Fukushima Town is truly an

adventure. Just don’t blink when passing through, or you might miss it! (My home is always open to host people! And I’m happy to serve as an interpreter/ translator for the local museums! Contact me through Facebook or e-mail any time. :) ) —Jordan Bauzon 3rd year ALT Fukushima Town, Hokkaido jordanbauzon@nevada.unr.edu

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Photos by

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Ted Jones

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Photo by Rehan Nel

Photo by Ted Jones