Since we are here to teach English at MeySen Academy, I thought I'd explain more about it. MeySen Academy was founded in 1967 by a group of missionaries who came to Japan to share the gospel and felt called to be self-supported since working hard is a large part of the Japanese culture. The school began as a 2-year kindergarten program at the Maruyama campus and later expanded to a second campus, Takamori. The programs later grew to include Toddler's Club, daycare, friends' club, and trips to America and Europe. In addition, MeySen owns Grape City and Wine Studios, a movie studio where they create their own educational materials and also film movies and commercials. MeySen also supports missionaries in Southeast Asia. That's pretty cool -- we are missionaries working for missionaries who support other missionaries!
Kindergarten is for students that are 4 and 5 years old. They can attend regular Kindergarten (which is taught in Japanese with 40 minutes a day of English instruction) or Immersion Kindergarten (which is taught in English with 40 minutes a day of Japanese instruction). From what I've been told, the Immersion Kindergarten is a highly esteemed program and parents will literally camp out before the day of registration in hopes that their child we get a spot in the program. When they sign up for Immersion Kindergarten, they are actually committing to have their children enrolled in the Immersion program from kindergarten through 6th grade. Once they are old enough to attend Japanese school, they graduate from MeySen kindergarten and attend Japanese school. They can also choose to continue their English education in Friends' Club (for students who attended regular Kindergarten) or Immersion Friends' Club (for students who attended Immersion kindergarten).
What is different about Friends' Club and Immersion Friends' Club is basically the amount of exposure that students have to English and the time that they commit to the program. Students in regular Friends' Club are in grades 1st-6th and come to Meysen 3 times a week for one hour a day. Students in Immersion Friends' Club are in grades 1st-4th grade (since this is the oldest class that began Immersion. They will go up to 6th grade eventually) and come to MeySen 4-6 times a week for 2 1/2 hours a day. That is on top of their regular Japanese school! Naturally, as a result of the time commitment, students in Immersion speak, read, and write English better than students in the regular programs.
Kris is teaching regular Friends' Club. This means he teaches 2 different grades each day for an hour each, for a total of 4 different grades each week. I teach Immersion friends' club, so I teach only 3rd graders who come 4-6 days per week (meaning they can miss up to 2 days per week). We use the same curriculum and do the same things in our classroom, except my students have more interaction with the materials so they pick it up faster.
The best part about MeySen is that it is a place where kids can come to hear about Christ and experience God's love in action. Throughout the year, the students hear the gospel message at an assembly (The Immersion kids hear it in English and the regular friends' club students hear it in Japanese). In addition, teachers are able to speak openly and freely about God and can incorporate faith into their class as time permits. As an Immersion teacher, I will have a little more room in my class time for this than Kris. I plan to pray in my class and also read from a children's picture Bible to my students as well as talk about how I've seen God work in my life. Most importantly I wish to put my faith into action and love my students well. This is something that I know cannot just be planned for, but rather requires the Holy Spirit. I'm excited to see God at work over the next year!
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