Stuff to buy/make for THE CHILDREN!

[Antonath]

Hah. Oh. So... chalkboards then?

Some schools have whiteboards, and sometimes even interactive ones, in special teaching rooms (for IT classes, in high-level schools, etc). But in general, the classrooms themselves are chalkboards, yes. Those are the rooms you will be teaching in 99% of the time.

[5100]

Every part of you will be covered in chalk at one point or another.

[therealwindycity]

All of my schools have smart boards that are usually free for me to use if I want them. They don't always have a dedicated computer, though, so don't always count on being able to use them on the fly

[Gizmotech]

There are 2 white board rooms in my school, and 2 other rooms with whiteboards at the rear of the class (sort of an after thought I guess).

Both white board rooms are technology rooms.

We have one brand new 70" LCD TV with interactive pen support for tablets and its connected laptop that noone knows how to use.

I think some of the ES level schools have 1 interactive white board in them for various classes. My spec-ed school has one, but they stopped using it when the English teachers all bought iPads and a really basic English learning app to use for pronunciation practice.

[Ini]

we have a couple of touchscreen tvs that are connected to laptops which you can wheel around and each classroom has a projector in the ceiling with a laptop/appletv and a strange interactive pen that allows you to interact with whats being projected (fuck knows what black magic is at work there)

[Shincantsen]

My ES was all black chalkboards. I think they were still using VHS players.

My recommendation for stuff to bring if you'll be teaching in Elementary school is stickers and stamps. Stickers are good to give away as rewards and stamps are good when you're marking papers. Try going to a teacher store and pick up stuff that has an American flag (if you're American) or English words (like 'great job' etc). Get packs of stickers that are small or at least all similarly sized, and come with a lot. Some places have books of like 500 little round stickers, those are great.

[Namisuke]

One more thing - a great gift for your school is age/level appropriate books for your school's library(ies). Some dollar stores sell Disney books, books about bugs, science, and so on. I bought a bunch of those for my SHS (they're really low level), and they were well received. It was cute seeing them get coded into the library system! The librarian said the bug one was popular with the kids for browsing.

[Libellule]

My ES was all black chalkboards. I think they were still using VHS players.

My recommendation for stuff to bring if you'll be teaching in Elementary school is stickers and stamps. Stickers are good to give away as rewards and stamps are good when you're marking papers. Try going to a teacher store and pick up stuff that has an American flag (if you're American) or English words (like 'great job' etc). Get packs of stickers that are small or at least all similarly sized, and come with a lot. Some places have books of like 500 little round stickers, those are great.

Is it common for people to bring over stickers/stamps? Will bringing these things make a better impression? When I was marking during my teaching practicum I would just write nice words beside the totals.

[Gizmotech]

It's common because someone 20 years ago brought some over, it worked well, and told everyone else to do it.

I did not bring em, and definitely did not need em.

[Namisuke]

You don't have to bring anything like that. If you see teachers going through work though, you notice many of them stamping it to show they saw it. If you have to do marking at your school, kids get a kick seeing your hanko. I write questions/comments about the content the student wrote about, personally. I almost always forget about stamping work/using stickers.

Don't bring stickers unless you know they're unique somehow. Japan is a sticker jungle! The one thing that isn't really done here are scratch-n-sniff stickers.

[jacklostinred]

I use Hanko cards in the classroom and change up my hanko whenever I remember. My pred left 30-40 different stamps in my desk and kids will answer questions so they can see what the hanko is for the day.

[Shincantsen]

Is it common for people to bring over stickers/stamps? Will bringing these things make a better impression? When I was marking during my teaching practicum I would just write nice words beside the totals.

You definitely do not need to bring them. I'm not sure if any of my teachers even noticed that I had special stamps/stickers. I just like stickers, and I was teaching young kids, so I brought them. In any case, it's possible that your pred will have left some English stamps, too.

[Lianwen]

I've taken to carrying around a couple stickers on my person. They're good for spontaneous rewards for kids who run up and talk to you outside of class. My friend made me custom stamps, which were great, too.

[Page]

A word about hanko--it's OK to use them but if you're a person that's considering staying here for the long term I'd make a custom paper checking hanko for it (can be made at most hanko shops here). There are no rules about not using your official bank hanko on papers but I'm sure most long term JETs would agree that they've never seen any J-teachers doing it. But for people who don't really care and won't be here that long it is pretty exciting for students.

You can get stamps and stickers here so you don't have to bring them with you. Japanese stickers are a lot nicer than the ones back home, imo (though I did bring a few reward packs for ES and kindy). It also depends on if your JTEs (JHS/HS) use them as to if you'll need or want them. Aside from the one JTE that specifically requests that I use stickers I just write comments and notes on papers.

[teabot]

You can get stamps and stickers here so you don't have to bring them with you. Japanese stickers are a lot nicer than the ones back home, imo (though I did bring a few reward packs for ES and kindy). It also depends on if your JTEs (JHS/HS) use them as to if you'll need or want them. Aside from the one JTE that specifically requests that I use stickers I just write comments and notes on papers.

they're nicer, but also more expensive. i've found that a yearly purchase of a few packs while i'm back home (or ask someone to send) tends to keep me in stock. i usually try to get scratch n sniff because they are much less common here. for other smaller/seasonal stickers i've bought here though.