So I recently came across a large amount of photos from events I have yet to blog about that happened during the past 6 months or so, life as a Kobe JET during the summer months is so hectic I could hardly keep up with documenting all the amazing stuff I was getting up to!
Anyhow 6 months down the road I shall take you back in time to present to you Gaidai Summer School!
Basically during natsuyasumi 夏休 (summer vacation), us ALTs are generally left with pretty much nothing to do for 5 weeks. Yet due to our contracts, unlike western teachers we don’t get the holidays off and must still goto work everyday and twiddle our thumbs.
Luckily in Kobe our BOE takes good care of us and keeps us busy with a couple conferences, bonus leave and what is know as Gaidai Summer School.
Basically the 120 or so Kobe JETs get together for 3 days and run a fun English program for students whose parents want to ruin their childhood, insisting they have English crammed down their throats whilst they should be being kids!
The event is held in Gakuentoshi at Gaidai Daigaku a university specializing in English. This is crazy convenient for a good half of us as the university is only a couple minutes walk from our residences.
Anyhow under the guidance of the time lord The Doctor ‘Richard’ (pictured above) a couple of my friends and I created a Dr. Who themed time travel room!
Basically it was a take on a country themed game room, but instead of countries students would travel through ‘time’ with to different periods to play English themed games.
Each group was escorted by a ‘Time Travel Assistant’ the four of us are pictured above. I was the shinny red haired ‘delta’!
We basically achieved the dodgy illusion of time travel by splitting the room into four corners using boards and streamers. Students traveled around clockwise visiting each of the 4 time periods and playing the respective games in each with the ALT inside.
The four time periods included ‘Ancient Egypt’ with Cleopatra.
Neo-Tokyo with a kawaii android.
Native America with an Indian.
And finally Ancient Rome with a spartan warrior.