Month: March 2019

Karuta Game Vibes

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On Sunday, March 3, Japanese Plus students participated in the Washington DC Inishie Karuta Club’s annual Karuta Competition. Our students competed in the Genpei-sen (team match) – Japanese Learners Division (for non-Japanese and children in 2nd grade or younger). Special thanks to Mutsumi Stone for the special invitation!

By Maria Garcia

Karuta! All week I have been listening to my mentors try and recruit more players. We had a total of about six kids who volunteered to go out and play. But as of yesterday’s class that number dropped to four kids. Our team names were given to us and I was on team Japanese Plus! So in the end, Jonah, Theo, Kenny, and I went to the karuta event. Ms. Sally came along to help us get registered. Oh, and before we were given our table number, we were allowed to get a gift. I got the okonomiyaki souvenir! It reminded me of when my host mother in Gifu, Japan made it for me the night I was allowed to stay with her.

My team was made up of Kenny and myself, while the other team was named Puni Puni which was composed of Jonah and Theo. As I said before, I knew little to nothing about karuta, since the only thing I knew was the hiragana I had been learning in class. Kenny and I started the game as instructed and the little confidence I had grew. First, we had to mix the cards and collect seventeen cards to put into our section. When the first couple of letters were called, I looked for them and put my fingers over it. The young lady who was at our station said I was right and I was so happy. But then as the game progressed, finding the cards became more difficult. This is because we didn’t have a set order for our cards. The reader kept calling the letters and we couldn’t find the letters in time. When it was over… let’s just say we lost by a lot to like six year olds!

Then, we moved on to our next round. Kenny suggested that we should put the cards in order from the first upper left letter they had. Which was smart because we had to start reading the cards from the upper left hand corner. We also told ourselves that we weren’t going to lose again or at least not by all the cards. By putting our cards in order we were able to play and quickly read the cards. This time we were also able to play until the end, which got really challenging since the less cards on the table means that you have to move more quickly.

Oh! Yeah it’s a nice time to mention that I could only play with one hand due to an injury in the other. Things really got intense when Japanese Plus had to go up against Puni Puni. Our mini battle was well worth it, and even though Japanese Plus lost this (by one card), it was well worth a Sunday.

(The kid in the background is the way I felt after a long and exciting day).

ISO “Japan in DC” Co-Teachers for 2019 Program

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Arboretum columns

Globalize DC is now recruiting staff for our summer 2019 “Japan in DC” Program.

Introduced in 2017, “Japan in DC” gives interested DC public high school students the opportunity to explore and document the presence of Japan in their own city – through its individuals, institutions, and landmarks. This fun and educational four-week program is scheduled to run Monday-Friday, July 1- 26, 2019, 9 am – 3 pm.

We are now seeking two qualified and energetic teachers or international educators to lead this summer program. Graduate students, with appropriate experience and interests, are encouraged to apply. These are paid, part-time positions. We hope to select these individuals by early April.

Click here for more details and information on how to apply: 2019-Japan-in-DC-Teacher-Recruitment

Any questions? Contact sally@globalizedc.org.

 

Japanese Food Unit

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By Jazmin Angel-Guzman

In our Japanese Plus 1-Inu class, we are wrapping up unit two – food! My group and I are the usagi group. The members of my group are Alexx, Kenny, and Angel. Our final task for the food unit is to make a video with our group of what we usually eat, or foods pertaining to specifically DC, and even American food. We decided to show breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the video to show the foods we eat at different times of day.

As for breakfast we went to IHOP, and we had our scripts with us. In addition, one member of my group and I had to share pancakes. It took several cuts to make the “cut,” because we wanted to get good scenes, so that it’ll show up in our video. For lunch we made spaghetti tacos. As for this idea, when we were thinking about lunch ideas, I remember mentioning spaghetti tacos from Icarly, a TV show on Nickelodeon, and boom, next thing you know we were going to make spaghetti tacos, at one of our member’s house. As for dinner we went to Boli’s Pizza to get a jumbo slice pizza after class on a Wednesday.

Initially, I was reluctant to even do this video project, because I’m not really good in videos, and because we had to speak in Japanese. Having a camera in front of me is not a beautiful picture. But seeing my group members with me, they encouraged me. For example, the video we have now wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the amount of retakes we took. I consider myself playing a role in messing up, but simultaneously I was having fun.

One of the successful things that happened in the making of this video was that we finished earlier than the due date because we thought we only had like three days to do it. So we kind of did it consistently without many gaps in the process making.

One of the things this video project has taught me is that group work is important and that by working together you can produce something amazing that can blow your mind like it did mine.