Thursday

Woke up at 7:00am today, had cornflakes for breakfast, and then cycled to school today for a change. The weather was really lovely and it was cold, but that felt really nice when cycling to school. The VP had received some Baumkuchen so he handed that out to everyone. I’d always wanted to try baumkuchen after watching this Japanese drama that had it a lot so yay (it was really nice)! Back to a nice standard day of 4 classes. Had a free period in period 1 so I made this conversation box thingy that another ALT had told me about yesterday – it’s a really neat idea! So he has a box/jar of numbers, and at the beginning of each lesson he (or a student) will pull a number out, and he’ll have a mini conversation with that number’s student. It’s a great way to revise previous grammar points (since usually kids would forget what they learnt as soon as they move onto a new unit) and also just to get in speaking practice. That ALT has taught at both junior high and elementary, and he says once the kids are in junior high, it’s all reading and writing and hardly any speaking practice, so it’s good to get in a lot of conversation going in elementary school.

Had 1-1 in period 2 and we were starting a new unit today (“What’s this?” – the stationary unit). I also decided to start singing the “Hello” song at the beginning of each lesson, like the visit school I went to on Oct 24th. They did the song and actions very well! 1-1 is the best with songs and dances I think – very very energetic, and they all like to dance with me at the front of the class. The classes with 1st grade always feel a bit long though, since they don’t write their reflections (furikaeri) at the end, so we don’t have that 5 minutes at the end. 5 minutes really makes such a difference! I’d done all the planned activities, and still had a few minutes at the end to kill, which in other grades would’ve been perfect furikaeri time, but since 1st grade doesn't have it it’s always thinking up random last minute games to do on the spot. They actually did pretty well trying their best to remember all the vocab. It’s interesting that you can actually see the difference very clearly between grades 1 and 2. Since grade 2 is one lesson unit ahead of grade 1, I just use the same lesson plans but simplify it a little bit for grade 1 obviously. Grade 2 is able to remember all 9 stationary objects easily enough, but grade 1 struggles. The funny thing though was that they would pronounce blackboard the same way as grade 2 did (“blackboy”). The school has their marathon coming up soon, so the whole school is spending the 20 minute morning break running outside! It’s very cute – they play one of Arashi’s songs while running (走り出せ), and the kids told me that 5th/6th grade runs 1.5km, 3rd/4th grade run 1km, and 1st/2nd runs 800m which I find absolutely adorable. I can't remember too well but I feel like in NZ we ran a lot more for our cross-country.

1-2 in period 3 and another fun class. Managed to fill up those last five minutes by playing the Halloween video, because they requested it at the beginning of class. So I told him that I would play it for them if they tried their best till the end of the lesson. Their response was hilarious – as soon as I said that they all sat up super straight and were like “LET’S TRY HARD TILL THE END GUYS” and “WE MUST WATCH THE HALLOWEEN VIDEO” and so on. 1-2 is truly the most affectionate class. 1-3 was the best at remembering the vocab though. I managed to fill up their last 5 minutes by playing Pictionary at the end, where I would draw parts of the stationary until they could guess what it was. There was one hilarious one where I was drawing an eraser, and one kid answered in Japanese “消しゴム” so I said “English please” and he just said “消しゴ~ム” with a foreign accent. The homeroom teacher and myself just laughed – it was so cute and funny. Lunch with 3-3 was eventful today. One of the kids was acting up today pretty bad, so the homeroom teacher dragged him out to scold him somewhere else. They didn’t come back for a while so I was watching the class by myself. Luckily the kids are generally very well behaved by themselves during lunchtime, and the mealtime rules and stuff are all already very well established, so it was easy. Went to check my English board at lunchtime and 4 people had already put their completed autumn leaves in there! The “messages” at the back were all the same “I’m happy”, and that’s probably because they just copied the example I gave on the board. The librarian had also done one leaf too, so I think she must’ve got the kids who were in the library at lunchtime to do it as well. Cleaning time was overall good today, but with a few rough patches in between. Its because the girl who is very talkative and dramatic is back this week. The other kids are actually all very well behaved (and I have to say they put up with her very well) but she stirs up trouble wherever she goes, so that’s why the few rough patches were there. But they still cleaned well, no matter how noisy they got, so I still rewarded them with their stars. I just had 6 left on that sheet, and they very peacefully divided the colours that they wanted very well, so I praised them for that.

Last class of the day with 4-2 in period 5, just another easy fun class, but they were a bit noisier than usual cause of all the games, plus we got our first tears in 4th grade today. The one girl was frustrated because she lost in the karuta game. Their tears are so innocent though, it’s just cause she was so frustrated about not being able to do better in English so she cried! This class is fantastic at repeating after me loudly and clearly though. After the class ended my JTE and I talked a bit about our respective workshops yesterday. She went to observe a mathematics class at another school though, and she said it was just about the same as our school, or any other normal class. I really liked that, and I told her about how the English lesson we observed was very robotic and rehearsed and perfect. She liked the conversation practice at the beginning of every class idea though, so we’re going to implement that in the next upcoming class! I went to check the English corner return box again in period 6, and there were 3 more leaves, done by 2nd graders in there. Their messages were absolutely adorable, all of them writing “I will try harder in English”. Cuties. While in the staffroom, the school nurse made a call to one of the student’s parents to report an injury, and the amount of 敬語 that she was using was just insane. I expected it, because it is a call to a parent about their child’s injury, but still, hearing that phone call I just thought it’s tough being a teacher in Japan, or just tough for everyone working in Japan in general (the amount of apologising they have to do too). The librarian also set another date with me to go one of her favourite cafes next weekend, and to see some autumn leaves in that area too! The café is apparently quite special because they close in the winter, since they use their own produce for the menu. Got off work at 16:15 and cycled home. Made the lunch that I would bring on the hike tomorrow in prep tonight so I don't have to make it in the morning tomorrow (early departure!) and had dumplings for dinner.