By a stroke of luck during my job hunt about a month ago, I came across an available position that combines my two favorite subjects; Japanese and anime…
The position is being an after-school enrichment teacher via the Los Angeles YMCA. Each week I go to a few local elementary schools and give lessons to the kids.
I am now two weeks into my new job and have been combing both topics (Japanese and anime) together. Obviously I don’t expect young kids who are still learning the fundamentals of their native language, to become pros at a completely foreign language. So I’m just focusing on teaching them vocabulary words, common greetings and phrases, and maybe some very simple sentences. I’ll include fun cultural aspects too, such as Japanese food, schools, house design, and karaoke. I don’t expect the kids to memorize all the kana symbols, but they seem to enjoy writing them. We haven’t touched on kanji yet but I think they will enjoy those too because they are so pictorial and visually interesting.
The anime portion of the class helps keep their interest. Not knowing what anime is popular with English-speaking kids nowadays, on my first day of teaching, I showed them pictures of various children’s anime that’s been brought to the U.S. and asked which ones they knew. I have since found out that Pokemon is still the most well-known and liked. Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakugan, Dragon Ball, and Naruto are fairly popular as well. Sailor Moon, Digimon, One Piece, and Zatch Bell however seem to have been forgotten.
Of course, since I am dealing with elementary school kids between the ages of 5 and 12, I’m limited to the scope of children’s anime and I can’t reach beyond into the much more numerous teenager/adult aimed anime. To relate anime to our Japanese lessons, I have them do things such as write the names of anime shows or characters in kana. And, to give them quick breaks during each lesson, I’ll show them an opening or ending video from Pokemon, Naruto, etc,. Even though they can’t understand the song lyrics, they still get a kick out of the accompanying images. I recently showed them some of Chi’s Sweet Home, a series that’s never been dubbed on American TV, and they loved it.
Next week I’m going to be teaching the Japanese and anime classes in separate lessons. For the anime class, it might be hard teaching them the more interesting and complex attributes of anime, such as character development, production values, sub vs dub, otaku culture, etc., when I’m limited to unobjectionable children’s anime, and the kids are probably too young to understand these things anyway. I’ll have to pass on important titles like Evangelion and Death Note too for obvious reasons. So I’m just gonna talk about a brief history of anime, discuss genres common in children’s anime, and other easier, less analytical topics like anime conventions, music, manga to anime adaptation, and voice acting.
Times certainly have changed. I remember about ten years ago, back during the height of Pokemon’s popularity in the U.S., Pokemon stuff was actually banned from some schools for a while. And now, Pokemon is part of a class XD With my Japanese class, I’m hoping that if kids start to get interested, Japanese will eventually become a more commonly available language class in public schools (with few exceptions, the European languages still prevail). And with the anime class, perhaps I’ll be teaching some future otaku =P Or at least these kids will grow up with a better understanding of Japanese animation than most other Americans have.
I’m planning to write more on my thoughts about teaching Japanese and anime to kids at a later date when I get more experience. And if anyone has suggestions on how to teach elementary school kids about Japan/anime, I’m still open to suggestions =)
It’s a fantastic idea because of how likely they are to remember what you teach. When I was in the second grade, my class had a semi-permanent substitute teacher that knew a lot about languages. She taught us the sign language alphabet, and how to count to ten in languages such as Spanish and Japanese. It’s been over a decade since then, but I still remember everything she taught me. The age is perfect for developing language skills.
I hope that you continue having fun! The job sounds absolutely perfect for you. If you ever run out of ideas, try playing some kiddy songs and teach them the lyrics; it would be great for amateur vocabulary. Sensei never had us listen to music in my high school Japanese class, but in Mandarin Chinese, my laoshi would play kindergarten tunes. It really helped me out with quickly distinguishing sounds and learning to recognize words.
Sounds like your new job is going well – and sounds like it’s fun, too. I would imagine Pokemon is still loved by kids; I think American kids never got a fair crack at One Piece, really. If One Piece had been syndicated on American TV during afterschool hours (which I don’t think it ever was), it might have been different. And Chi’s Sweet Home is perfect for kids! I love how the voice actor does the kitten’s voice in that.
Maybe slipping in bits of Japanese folklore would add to the teaching about Japan portion of the class: like the thousand cranes story (and then they could make an origami crane).
“I remember about ten years ago, back during the height of Pokemon’s popularity in the U.S., Pokemon stuff was actually banned from some schools for a while. And now, Pokemon is part of a class”
Heheh, now that’s some delicious irony right there =P
Japanese and anime!? Saikyou.
Man, it sounds like you landed one awsome job.
I like Saere’s suggestion of teaching them Japanese though music. As a bonus maybe throw in Japanese versions of popular Disney songs somewhere in there? I think the kids would get a kick out of that, a new spin on old Disney favorites. =D (Thats if they happen to be Disney fans, I mean.)
What I would do for maybe once a month is have like a “movie day”. Show full anime episodes (if you have time) of series or movies they aren’t familar with and have Japanese foods to snack on. This might be a great way to introduce them to other anime, and to show them what a wide variety of series there is out there. Of course, they have to be kid friendly, and you can save the idea for a day when you want a break… (I have kiddie edited/dubbed episodes of Sailor Moon if you want them.)
If there’s one thing elementary school kids in the U.S. are in immense need of, it’s access to secondary languages.
I agree with the point about music, it’s a great way to keep kids’ attention too, I assume.
HI Im from pokemon and i suggest you teach everyone in the whole world about anime classes
I wish they had taught this stuff at my school
Wow, I didn’t know there were anime classes! Awesome! I’d like to take them. You’re so lucky, you get to teach your two favorite subjects!