First week of school finished!

Woke up at 7:00am today, soba for breakfast, and arrived at school at 8:05am. It’s Friday already! The first week of school has passed so fast, but at the same time a lot has been stuffed into it so it doesn't feel fast at times. Four classes to teach in total today, with the first being the 6th graders. We were on the lesson “countries” today.

I think the biggest challenge in teaching English here is making it relevant to the kids. They’re still paying attention in class and not being disruptive or anything so that’s good in that sense, but they’re not actively participating either. They still resort to using Japanese (for example they say all the country names in Japanese instead of the English that they’re meant to). I’d love to grow a more “English” atmosphere in the class, but with a curriculum and textbook that has so much Japanese and so little English, it’s a bit hard. They seemed to have fun with making the flag quiz though, and went a bit hyper with choosing the country’s flag to draw. A lot of them wanted to choose North Korea because of the recent missile news, and a lot chose random countries with super long names that even I didn’t know the English names of! Not surprisingly, they took a long time to choose, and only one group finished making their flag quiz so I gave them all a sticker on the sticker chart. They liked my hand-drawn kiwi stickers though so yay!

On the way back to the staffroom (it was break time) there was an argument going on in the staircase where three teachers were handling it. Interesting to see the discipline methods here. I didn't stay around to see how the whole situation unfolded, but when I was walking past, the crying kid was explaining what happened. My next class was in 4th period with the last 1st grade class. This class has been very participative in the English board, and I have a total of 5 kids to reward stickers to just from this class! Again, as with the other 1st graders, this class was also very energetic and enthusiastic. They were also hilarious with their question time – “What colour is your roof?” and “Does NZ have convenience stores” to which I replied “No.” to which they respond with “EH HOW DO YOU BUY FOOD!?” and other random as questions like “Does NZ have water?”! It’s easy to be energetic in these classes because the kids have so much energy too. But the second the class ends, all the energy is just drained, and you’re left super tired and sleepy! When I get my car I want to make weekly onsen trips to relax and recharge!

Lunch today was chicken curry, rice, salad, mandarin, and milk. Since it’s Friday today it was also English broadcast! We introduced three more sports day related words, and I also tried to teach them how to say (and the meaning of) “what’s up bro”. I’m not sure if they understood or not cause no one said it to me at lunchtime! It’s super cute because there’s still a lot of 1st and 2nd graders (and some 3rd!) running around finding the cards. Cleaning time happens after lunch break (13:30 to 13:50 is cleaning time) and I’m still not sure what to do for this time. I don't want to disrupt their cleaning (students always talk to you and try to slack off cleaning), but at the same time I feel really weird just sitting at my desk doing nothing with students sweeping and wiping the floor around you.

Last classes of the day were with 5th and 6th grade! Second alphabet class with 5th grade, and we decided to make it harder by giving them more activities. Since they can actually recognize all the letters already, I made them a simple wordfind to do. I’m also glad that my JTE isn’t so rigid with the curriculum anymore, and specifically asked me to change it up and make it more interesting! She could see the students were super bored too. As a result, today’s class was quite a success! They loved the “guessing the letter” game, and also were able to correctly ask for things “____ card please” so I’m really happy about that! I guess it’s really true that learning happens better when the learner is having fun! They also enjoyed the wordfind, and here the quieter/shy students could really shine. They liked the challenge, and the top kids could find 10~12 words out of 16! The louder kids who usually put their hands up could enjoy the wordfind too, so I think I’m going to incorporate more worksheet based games/activities so that everyone can actively participate. I’m also really impressed with how the kids like the jingles and chants. I thought the kids would find it cringey and lame, but not at all, they chant along properly! Since the 5th graders can recognize all the alphabet letters pretty well, I’m encouraging them to put together the letters to read/spell words. It was quite cute that a lot of them were spelling “blue” as “brue” and “yellow” as “yero”. Teaching English makes you realize what a hard language English can be to learn.

The last 6th grade class was alright. Quite a lot of hyper kids in this class and it is the last period of the day. Despite that, there were still like 8 students giving it their all, and learning the country names, matching them with the world heritage sites, etc. We ran out of time again for making the flag quiz, but a lot of them had chosen their flags and thought up hints already so that’s pretty good progress. 45 minutes is so short for a lesson! The time flies by before you’ve even done everything and you’re left thinking just where did the time go?

Stayed at work till 17:00 today – again I didn't notice the time flying by! I was just working on making some worksheets and then looked up at the clock and shock! So late already! Had two super quick meetings with the 3rd grade teachers and one 1st grade teacher for Monday’s lessons before I left work. It was super windy on the ride back home so I was going so slowly that it must have looked really funny. I came home to my electricity bill in the letterbox, and I didn't do too bad this month! It came up to ¥2329, well under my ¥3000 budget.