Last Day of English Summer School

Last day of the English Summer School today. It was only 4 days but you already get quite attached to the students and feel a little sad that you wont be able to see them again (unless you’re a junior high school ALT). Today was their speech presentation day, so we only had 2 segments. Today’s conversation segment was probably the best – the students were so confident, had a lot to talk about (favourite place), and asked questions too! One student that I talked to yesterday came up to me today and told me he didn’t sleep at all last night because he was reading Harry Potter (all of them!) in English! What a cutie.

The 2nd segment was speech presentation time! They had a little bit of final practice time before presenting. After each students’ speech they were also asked a question by the next student in line, and this way they managed to practice asking and answering questions as well as presenting their speeches. Everyone did really great, and some students had their speeches fully memorised. The questions were adorable because of their limited vocabulary, so it was mostly closed questions with super short answers, but it was so nice to see them trying hard. After that it was a mini closing ceremony and us ALTs giving the students their participation certificates.

In other news; I have finally decided to get a car. At first I was hesitant to get one because I really wanted to save money and I thought I could get by with just my bicycle, but in the end, a car is really convenient and quite necessary (since I’m in the middle of rice fields with everything really far away from me), especially in bad weather when I can’t get anywhere on my bike. I have to pay a monthly fee for the parking space outside my apartment though, so after my supervisor helped me make some phone calls, I had to go to the real estate office to get the contract papers. This took longer than I thought (I thought it’d be a quick drop in to get papers), so when it hit the half hour mark of waiting I made a phone call to school asking if I could take the rest of the afternoon off. They were extremely nice and understanding and told me not to worry about it!

After finally getting the contract documents and payment information, I made my way back home for dinner.