Fall "English Experiences"

If you're looking for a good conversation starter (in Japan) this time of year, the following phrase will likely get you a long way:

福島の秋はとても美しいです。
"The Autumn in Fukushima is absolutely beautiful!"

One of my students, whose hobby is photography, has been outside "practicing" for weeks, in preparation for when the leaves change color.  A week ago Haidee and I took a hike up Azuma Ko Fuji, the mountain that we can see from our apartment window, and enjoyed some beautiful Fall colors at the higher elevation.

Some of the beautiful Fall colors atop 吾妻小富士

Along with the change of colors this Fall has come a change in activities at our English school.  One of Haidee's students recently got married and had to stop taking English lessons.  This lowered our Saturday student count to one.  For some reason our Fukushima students have not been very interested in regular English classes on Saturdays.  After a bit of brainstorming we decided to try a little experiment this fall:

Autumn English Experience

An interactive, hands-on experience is a very good way to learn a foreign language.  It can also be a lot of fun!  So we've scheduled events for five Saturday afternoons this Fall to see if there is any interest in this alternative form of English language learning.  Drawing from the many diverse talents of our team:  Haidee, Cindy, Pamela, and myself, we came up with these five themes:  Pie Baking, Dancing, Skits and Stories, Christmas Songs and Carols, and a Christmas Party (Yes - partying is a talent!). 

Our first event, Pumpkin Pie Baking, required a lot of preparation.  Haidee and I practiced making crusts and baking pumpkins (which are actually かぼちゃ= Japanese squash).  Cindy baked Apple Cobbler, and designed the recipe handouts for the event.  We brainstormed ways to bake pies using our 3 tiny Japanese ovens (that suck up electricity and tend to blow fuses in older Japanese buildings; such as our church).  The morning of the event we rearranged the Sanctuary to make space for 4 different groups to bake a pie and an apple cobbler.

Our Pie Baking event was very well attended!  In addition to students from our school, we had some students from a public school where Cindy teaches, as well as students from a church member's school.  Everyone enjoyed the day, good conversations were had, and all the pies got baked, eventually (I ended up running over to Pamela and Joel's apartment with one uncooked pumpkin pie to use their oven when it was clear that the church was not going to handle all three ovens going at once).

Cindy teaching the words to "Shake Another Hand" - our icebreaker song

Students interacting during the event.

Haidee explains the pumpkin pie recipe.

Participants of all ages help with the pie making.

The ladies gather ingredients at the back table.

Students enjoying pie and tea at the end of the afternoon

We'll be posting more about our "Fall Experiences" on the English school website:  http://3strandsenglish.webs.com/apps/blog/.  Haidee updates the site weekly - if you're interested, check it out from time to time.