Monday

Woke up to beautiful weather this morning at 7:00am – looks like this week is finally going to be good weather all the way through! Can finally go see some autumn leaves maybe! Had rice for breakfast and then drove to school since it was still a bit windy from the typhoon. Nice busy day today with 5 classes. I love it when the day is filled with classes. First up was 6-1 and we did the number game again, but they really struggled with it so I had to finish it early after the “multiples of 3” round. Moved onto writing their schedules and again discovered a lot of early risers. Quite a few kids got perfect scores on the time test, so that was good. Made sure to clearly teach them the difference between “teen” and “ty” again, as a lot of them are still confused by that. Next up was 3-3 and it was a super hyper lesson. They can remember all the sports names but it took them a little while to properly remember how to ask “What sport do you like?”. We did the sports interview sheet and it was crazy – kids running around everywhere and just being very noisy in general. The homeroom teacher didn’t mind too much but it did get a bit out of hand at the end when some kids were pushing the desks and chairs out of order. There was also a lot of cheating going on where the kids weren’t asking “What sport do you like?” in English properly, but just asking in Japanese.

Had 3-2 in period 3 and another rather messy class. They weren’t in a good mood today, so it was a lot of waiting for them all to fall silent, and a lot of raised voices from both their homeroom teacher and myself. A few kids were doing it properly, but there were a lot who lazed around and kind of walked around aimlessly instead of doing the sports interview. Hope the next class will be better. Period 4 with 3-1 and they were so much better. A lot more attentive, and they were the class that did the sports interview properly. There were also at least 3 kid trying their best to write everything in English, instead of writing the sports names in Japanese. Class dynamics are truly an interesting things – what makes one class more well-behaved and quiet than the other? Homeroom teachers definitely seem to have an effect, but when the homeroom teachers are mostly the same in terms of discipline and temperament, what else affects the class’ behavior? Of course some classes might have the rowdier kids, but sometimes the classes with rowdy kids can be well behaved on the whole.

Had lunch with 3-3 today, and they’re probably the most affectionate class out of the 3rd grade classes. They saw me coming and had to announce “JAIME-SENSEI IS HERE” and the girls at the front all started up conversations with me. We had rice, a really nice tempura fish thing, egg and tofu soup, and cucumber + turnip salad. One boy who was sitting at the front of the classroom was also very affectionate and struck up a conversation. I’m not sure if he’s joking or not, but he says his family has 10 cars! He also asked where I was born and whether my house is big. I swear elementary kids just ask the cutest questions (I answered Hong Kong for the place I was born, and he was like “in a hospital?”). Spent the lunch break outside today since it was such good weather, but it was really windy! Picked up some rubbish from the pond with some 1st graders, and then just chatted a bit with some 4th graders (they were all saying “Who me? Not me!” and “AHA!” to me, from the picture book we’d been reading) and 1st graders and 2nd graders. Lunch feels so short, because I didn't even get to really play with any kids before the bell rang. There was an accident where one student apparently hit her chin on a bar, so an ambulance was called, so the kids were all crowding around the gate. Made me remember my primary school days where the whole school would be like “OOOOH” if an ambulance or anything like that came to the school.

Last class with 5-2 in 5th period and it was actually a really fun class! I think all the kids just really like the keyword game, but I’m really glad that the 5th graders actually did it properly, since I was worried they’d be all “cool” and stuff about it, but they weren’t! We were on the new unit “What’s this?” and this unit has a lot of random vocabulary for them to learn (total of 27 absolutely random words) so we started with 14 today. They actually did really well! We split it into two bunches of 7 words, and did a vocab drill, then the keyword game, for each bunch. It was funny seeing them so tense in the keyword game, waiting for the keyword to come. It was easy to trick them just by saying a word louder or with more emphasis, and they’d go for the eraser! I’m just really really glad that they actually repeated the vocab after me properly. That way we actually got in some pronunciation practice. I was also really happy because there’s one kid at school who hardly attends any lessons, and the teachers just let him roam around the school (I think their line of thinking is that it’s better to have the kid roaming around aimlessly at school, than skipping school altogether) – but he actually came to class today and really enjoyed the keyword game! It was also really heartwarming to see him properly repeating the vocab too! There was a little incident where my JTE had to spend the last quarter of the class scolding a kid because he had called another kid chubby (the word used had more negative connotations). I continued on with the lesson and asked her about it afterwards, and it looks like the kid still didn’t understand that calling someone else fat is not nice/right. Still fascinated by how kids here cry very easily when being scolded – I think it’s good though, cause it shows they have feelings when being scolded. Better than those kids who keep stoic faces and think they didn’t do any wrong at all.

There was another staff meeting after school today so it was just me and the librarian and the caretaker in the staffroom. Had a good chat with the librarian about autumn leaf spots. It’s really funny though cause she really doesn’t like crowded places (like REALLY doesn’t like) so she doesn't go to a lot of the popular places! Got off work at 16:15 and drove straight home. Have spent quite a lot already in the past weekends shopping (all that rainy weather…) so I can’t spend any more! And the easiest way to save money is just to not go out at all. Plus fuel prices have been on the higher end lately so there’s that too (¥130 per liter is on the higher end, whilst prices have gone down to ¥123 per liter before). Had dumplings for dinner!