Friday

Woke up at 7:00am, potato mash for breakfast, and drove to school. I wore my fluffy jacket today to school cause my throat is feeling a bit sore and I don't want it to develop into a cold. Before JET I had read that you’re not allowed to wear your jackets during class time, but it looks like they allow you to here, which I’m really grateful for because the classrooms are truly chilly. I’d also read that you shouldn't blow your nose in front of others in Japan (you should excuse yourself and go to the bathroom) but yesterday there was a teacher blowing her nose openly in the staffroom, so I guess that’s alright too? Very relaxed day today with only 3 classes to teach, so I spent most of the prep time making the Halloween tags for next week’s 1st grade class.

First up was 6-1 in 2nd period. Their homeroom teacher was growling them just as we arrived, so the atmosphere was pretty quiet and grim in the first half of the lesson (their homeroom teacher is one of the rare scarier ones in this school). We finished off the presentations (reading 4 pages from one of the 3 picture books we did) and then started the new lesson unit “What time do you get up?”. We played the number game (standing in a circle and counting to 60) to check that everyone could count up to 60, and they could. Tried to do it backwards (counting from 60 to 1) but they struggled with that! Then we did the textbook listening activity, and as expected, numbers like 13 vs. 30, 15 vs. 50, 16 vs. 60, are hard to distinguish. I mean even as an English speaker sometimes you have to double check (“Did you say 16 or 60?”). But otherwise it’s a relief to know they can all at least tell the time/know about clock hands and stuff like that.

Funny episode for today’s English broadcast though – in the broadcast room you can’t hear if a teacher makes an announcement using their broadcast mike in the staffroom. So we said the whole English broadcast stuff for today, only to be greeted by the music teacher (who’s in charge of the broadcast group) in front of the staffroom, asking if we did the broadcast. Then we found out that while we were broadcasting, the VP had made an announcement overriding our broadcast. That’s allgoods though, because it just means I can use the same stuff for next week’s broadcast, so I don't have to think of anything new yay! Lunch today was one piece of teriyaki chicken with rice, soup with lots of vegetables, and salad.

Last two periods went by fairly smoothly. We finished off the picture book reading presentations in 6-2. Teeny bit disappointed with some kids who weren’t trying properly though. They had done the previous presentations (the country presentation ones) well though, so I think that’s why I was disappointed, because I know they can do better. Started the new unit with them and I’m glad that the kids who aren’t usually into English, were into this unit because of the numbers. The kids who don’t normally put up their hands to answer were this time round (it was a “telling the time” quiz and they could do it! So proud of them). This class was also better at distinguishing between the "teen" and "ty" for the similar sounding numbers! Last period with 5-1 and we did the name writing activity. A few kids were writing in lowercases already because they said capital letters were “too hard” (oh dear but we’ve been doing this for the past month…) so I hope they don’t get bored when we properly start on the lowercase letters unit!