Tuesday

Woke up feeling quite tired today at 7:15, ate rice for breakfast, then set off for school. First up were the 6th graders. I think currently 6th graders are my favourite. They’re all very sweet kids, some a bit cheeky and mischievous, and classes are just a lot of fun to teach! We were on our last unit for the “Let’s go to Italy” (countries) section, so today they were all presenting a country – introducing it and what you can do there. A lot of them were shy to present, but we still got a few going, and there were quite a number of volunteers. The ones who didn't present today still have to present in the next lesson, so there’s no escaping! There were 2 or 3 kids who did really well in their presentation – very smooth and pretty good pronunciation! The rest had to rely on writing out Katakana in order to be able to remember the English phrases, so the pronunciation is off, but the effort is there. I rewarded the ones who presented today with the special NZ Kiwiana stickers, just cause they did so well and I wanted to praise the ones who volunteered first. I was also pleasantly surprised that a lot of them would go up to present with just a little bit of encouragement and pushing. There also one girl in 6-1 who drew really good pictures! Like, seriously good.

After the 20 minute morning break was the 5th grade class, and we did the same alphabet activities. As expected, they all really like the flashlight quiz game, with them ALL standing up in their eagerness to answer. This class also had a few students with extremely neat handwriting. One of them had computer typed neatness level! Next up was 1st grade, and today they were a bit out of it, so it was a bit noisier than usual and harder to get them to calm down. The homeroom teacher had to step in quite a few times to tell them off a little bit, and remind them to pay attention. The guessing animal game didn’t go too well, as they all just ran around instead of playing the game properly, but at least they did well on the mini test, circling all the correct animals. They also sang along to “Old McDonald” really well too, not just the E I E I O part!

Lunch was super delicious today because of the creamy corn soup! It tasted so good. There was also milk bread and spaghetti with tomato and tuna on top. I also got extra milk and bread because one girl was away today, so the homeroom teacher very kindly gave it to me. The kids found it amazing – they were like “Jaime you eat a lot!?” and I was just like “Yea I do.” haha. During the lunch break today I stayed in the teachers’ office because I was feeling tired today. Some 4th grade? Or 3rd grade kids, I can’t really remember (they’re the two grades I see the least of), came to see me for an interview. They said it’ll be used in their Japanese classes! They even took my photo too haha. The questions were “What’s your favourite school lunch?” (I answered everything, cause literally everything is good), “Who’s your favourite comedian?” (I’m sorry kids I don't have one!) and “What’s your favourite word?” (木漏れ日 – it’s a beautiful Japanese word meaning “the sunlight filtering through the trees”). Cleaning time was pretty smooth with only one kid misbehaving. The other cheeky kid just lazed around so I chose to leave him alone. He’s really small and cute though, he reminds me of a cat. I decided to reward the girl who always leads the cleaning team a sticker though, since she really does a fantastic job at keeping the others in line.

Last class of the day was 4th grade. I really admire the 4th graders because they are just so good-natured and easy going. Even though they haven’t learnt the alphabet yet, they still obediently copied out the place names and reasons in English, and some even had absolutely perfect handwriting! They also did pretty good in the guessing game too. I would say something like “I like books” and they were able to guess the place correctly (library). In the prep time I was also able to teach a lot of them how to say/pronounce their reasons correctly, so I think we’ll be able to do the presentations properly next week! My JTE seems to be coming down with a cold though, I really hope it gets better soon and doesn't turn into a cold, because getting sick in a Japanese work environment really sucks (they always use their annual leave instead of sick leave). She also started with telling the class how she’s not feeling too well because she had to go to the dentist yesterday and do something where it left her right side of the mouth completely numb so she couldn't eat dinner properly last night. It was a good chance to remind the kids to brush their teeth properly!

After classes ended today, I had a quick lesson meeting with the 2nd grade teachers. My JTE also told me that 1st graders actually aren’t allowed on the 2nd floor, so with the treasure hunt style games I’m doing, I should either stop those, or only hide stuff on the 1st floor. Felt bad when I found that out, because not only did I inconvenience a lot of teachers, but it’s more the fact that when I do something wrong, the teachers tell my JTE to tell me, instead of telling me directly themselves, so it’s kind of like getting my JTE into trouble too. I’m sorry my dear JTE!!! Got off work today at 16:30, and didn’t go to badminton tonight because I was feeling very tired.