Tuesday!

A pretty busy week ahead – because Monday was a national holiday, a lot of classes got rescheduled and tomorrow I’m going to have an absolute full schedule of 6 classes to teach! That’s all the periods in the whole day phew. For today it was a nice schedule of 4 classes. Woke up at 7:00am, ate bread for breakfast, and then set off at 7:45am.

First two periods of the day were the 6th graders. They were unexpectedly so well behaved today! The normal troublemakers weren’t too rowdy and we managed to finish all the planned activities in both classes. That was great, but out of both classes (each with 35 students) only a few could remember the grammar and everything in English. A lot of them were using Japanese instead of pushing themselves to try in English. I think we at least got “Where do you want to go?” down, but the being able to say their reasons for wanting to go somewhere is still a bit iffy.

Next period was 5th grade. All the classes seemed to be so well behaved today! 5th graders also listened well today, and we were able to successfully play the Chain game! It started off slow at first, but as they got the hang of it the game got more interesting and they started becoming more competitive and fast! I think they all got too caught up in the excitement of the game though because they gradually forgot to ask “What do you want?” and just shouted the letters at each other instead. It was good though – they got to practice writing letters and most can write capital letters very neatly.

Next was 4th grade. I always feel a bit bad for the class who is to receive the first of the lessons – they’re almost like the pilot run/guinea pigs. For example, after today’s 4th grade lesson we realized that learning how to say their reasons for liking a place in English is way too hard for them, no matter how much we simplified their sentences/reasons. So for the next 4th grade class we chose to focus on “I like…” and “I can play…” instead of trying to teach every 4th grader their individual reason for liking the place. So today’s lesson didn't go too well in terms of learning and the lesson flow, hopefully we’ll be able to do better next week.

For lunch today I was with the last class of the 1st graders, and this class is so quiet and calm. They were a bit slow in serving the lunch, but when it came to eating and the cleaning up afterwards, they moved very quietly and nicely. They weren’t loud while eating, and after the lunch break this class does some compulsory writing in their notebooks (I think it’s daily notices or something) and they were all writing so quietly and well! At lunch a whole army of 1st and 2nd graders were already running around finding the new set of Emoji faces I had hidden up around the school. I think I hid them much too easy this time because a lot of them have already finished the sheet! But it’s also great to see, because after the first game they’ve got the hang of it completely, and they know they need to write the English down. The puzzle pieces are also slowly being found and the kids are slowly realizing that they are allowed to solve the puzzles on the English Corner board! As expected, the 5th graders are liking this the most, and participating the most. The board is looking very colourful and messy as puzzle pieces and letters are everywhere on it – it’s great!

For the last 2 periods today I didn't have any classes so I prepped for tomorrow’s stuffed schedule, and printed out more Emoji sheets for the English Board since they were ALL ALREADY GONE and it’s only the first day! Insane. Had my meeting today again with the 2nd grade teachers – this grade’s teachers are really the best when it comes to meetings and lesson planning. Prepped a little bit more for tomorrow’s lessons, finished translating the 4th graders work, and had a talk with my JTE about tomorrow’s lessons too. Got off work on time at 16:15 today since there was badminton tonight! Made some pasta with those instant cream sauces for dinner while I waited for my new badminton shoes to arrive. My badminton shoes from Amazon didn't get redelivered till 18:40 though, so I was a bit late to badminton. It's held at a school’s gym about a 20 minute drive away from my house. The roads to get to it were pretty weird and difficult – at one point I had to turn right into this narrow road, and I felt so bad for all the cars behind me who had to change lanes because of me blocking the road…I’m sorry! The badminton was great though, they had 2 courts and there were about 12 ish people there? Including me there were 5 ALTs! Everyone was really nice and hilarious – they told us to call them by their nicknames, and the lady in charge was so funny and cute. She was wearing a NZ shirt but she’s never been to NZ and actually bought the shirt in Takasaki! The badminton ended at 21:00, I dropped off another ALT at the station before heading home. Another ALT told me another badminton group that’s held on Wednesday nights and it’s super close to me so I will definitely be going tomorrow!