Wednesday

Woke up at 7:00am, rice for breakfast, and cycled to school. Had a quick briefing with 2-3’s homeroom teacher since I couldn't attend the meeting yesterday because of the x-ray. First up for today was 2-3, and they were much noisier than usual today. Their teacher also had a cold so she was using a castanet to get their attention and get them to settle down. Today’s focus was using gestures to guess the different jobs, so we played a gesture relay game (basically everyone taking turns to do gestures) and then the card exchange game, where they had to act out the job of the card they were holding, and if they guessed right, they would exchange cards. The kids had a lot of fun acting out the jobs, but they got a bit too excited so it was a little crazy. 2-2 was slightly better with less craziness. They would get really excited too about the acting, but then would forget how to say the job in English.

2-1 in period 3 and it was pretty good, but they also had a lot of trouble settling down between rounds, so we couldn't do as much of the games as we wanted to. 6-2 had an extra lesson today in period 4, so we decided to do the castle quiz game with them too instead of the usual curriculum lessons. But different from Grade 5, 6-2 had to say the sentences (e.g. “I get up at 7 o’clock) in order to get the points. They also could only use the “help” option (ask their teammates for help if they don’t know the answer) 3 times, but after we finished the game we realized we probably should have only given them 1 chance. They really liked the game as well, and were very enthusiastic about putting their hands up to answer. When the last round came and we told them “no chance to use help” they were like “EEEHHHH!?” but they did well. Even the kids who were always using the “help” option put up their hands and were able to answer. I love 6-2. When we were walking out their homeroom teacher returned and was like “How were they today?” and we’re like “They were great!” and she’s always like “Really…?” like she doesn't believe us haha.

Lunch with 4-2 was fun again today. We had a hamburger patty and seaweed + whitebait rice. 4-2 gets a really cool lunchtime tradition, where their homeroom teacher shows tourism videos of different prefectures in Japan, and they have a map that shows which prefectures’ videos they’ve watched. I think it’s great cause it’ll encourage them to go and see all those different places. Had a great Attack on Titan conversation again with the 2 kids – one of them was asking about the latest chapters, and I was like “I can’t spoil it for you!?” and he was like “No you can!!! Please tell me what happens!!”. Spent the lunchtime getting ready for the BOE observation class today in period 5, and also nametags. Cleaning time was easy today as the kids were all very good.

Went a bit early to 5-1 to hand out the nametags and get the kids to settle down for the lesson. The BOE teacher was actually here already, so we got started. Overall I thought the lesson went very well. The kids were a bit more settled today probably because there were observers (the VP was there too) and they did the activities well. We did the card exchange game to draw the bingo card, and then the castle quiz game. We did 3 rounds for the castle quiz game, with me running the first round, the kids running the second round, and then me saying hints for the third round. My JTE had even printed and prepared castle blocks to stick on the board, and a WINNER plaque for us to write the winning team on so it was great. After the lesson ended, I had a talk with the BOE teacher. Basically, first he told me that the principal and VP and my JTE all had good reviews for me, so that was good. And then he moved onto his observations about the lesson. As expected, he liked the card exchange game the most (truly as expected…the BOE likes these kinds of games the most!) because everyone gets to participate and speak English. He only liked the 3rd round of the castle game where I was saying the hints, because it was only in that round that the kids were really thinking about the vocab. He reckons just showing the picture doesn't get them to think about the word much. He didn't have anything too bad to say about me, but he did comment on the noise level and how the discipline of the kids could have been managed better, but it’s not the role of the ALT so he didn’t say much about it. I feel like most of the non-positive comments (critique?) was just nitpicking at the tiny details so that he would have some form of constructive criticism to give out. Other things mentioned were using more English and acting out demonstrations to explain a game, instead of using Japanese, and so on. We then talked about life in Japan in general, and he asked if I was having any troubles or anything, etc. He also asked about re-contracting and how many years I plan to do JET, or what my future plans are, and so on. Very standard stuff. After the talk finished I had a little talk with the Grade 1 teachers to figure out how we would do the Big Turnip play, and then cycled home. Stopped at the convenience store on the way to get some cash, pay some stuff, and buy some snacks. Finished colouring the Big Turnip picture book ready for tomorrow!