Wednesday - Prefectural Conference Day!

Today I had a conference to attend in Isesaki – it was a conference for all of Gunma prefecture’s ALTs (JETs had to attend, direct hires were optional) and also high school JTEs. Woke up at 7:00am, had bread for breakfast, and then drove to the education centre in Isesaki. There was a teeny bit of traffic but it wasn’t too bad at all. It’s at times like these where I’m pretty thankful for my apartment location. For the people driving from central Takasaki, it took them an hour and a half because of traffic (took me around 40 minutes?)! It was pretty cool seeing ALL the ALTs of Gunma gather in one place. It was also interesting because JTEs were attending, but whereas the ALTs were all greeting each other or at least talking to the people next to them (even if they didn’t know them), the JTEs were all sitting by themselves and looking at their phones or handouts. Understandable though, since the whole thing was in English and there were definitely some JTEs who weren’t confident in English.

The day started off with a talk by a guest speaker who used to be an ALT in Gunma, and now works as a consultant for global companies. He was a great speaker, very charismatic, and he talked about globalization and the importance of understanding different cultures, and how we should go about our daily lives understanding different cultures (seeing as we’re all living in one, being foreigners in Japan). I’m not sure how much of the talk the JTEs understood, cause he was a fast speaker, but it was definitely an interesting and helpful talk. We then split off into our respective workshops, and the one I had chosen was on Cooperative Learning. Basically having the lesson more student-focused instead of teacher-focused. The students cooperate in order to achieve the learning goals, and work together to help each other understand. I got a bit sleepy during this talk since I was tired, the heaters were too warm, and most of the stuff he was talking about was stuff I had studied in uni before, or read about before. We then had an hour lunch break, and we all couldn't find the cafeteria but then finally found this random room that resembled a cafeteria, so we all just ate there since we were super hungry.

The afternoon session consisted of one more workshop, and then a discussion session. The workshop was a compulsory one for 1st year ALTs, and talked about TOEFL methodologies and teaching methods. It was way more suited towards senior high school teachers, so for most of us in Takasaki (elementary ALTs) it wasn’t really relatable or useful. It was kinda interesting at the start when she was talking about the English language, or how we learn languages in general, but again I drifted off for the same reasons as above (warm heater, tired, stuff I’d learned in uni before). The discussion session was shorter than the workshops (1 hour vs. 1.5 hours) so I didn’t fall asleep. We discussed how to increase students’ motivation to learn English, and it was pretty nice to be able to hear all the different ALTs’ experiences in their respective cities and schools. In the end we all had a lot of the same problems though (apathetic kids, boring textbook, disruptive kids, absence of JTE/HRT, etc.) so it was nice to be able to discuss solutions together. The day ended with a short meeting for JETs about recontracting and other admin stuff, and then we were allowed to go! I headed straight home since my mum was here. We went out for dinner at a really nice yakiniku place, and then went to an onsen in Takasaki which was super great! It wasn’t too expensive (¥860 vs. other onsens which are usually ¥1000 or above) and it was so worth it because it was quite a large onsen – it had many different types of baths, and had a total of three different saunas! I stayed in the aroma sauna (today’s scent was jasmine) for quite a while, because it felt so good to go in the sauna and then go into the cold bath for a while. Went home and had a goooood sleep.