Thursday

Woke up at 7:15am, had rice for breakfast, and then drove to school. It’s truly becoming winter now as there’s always a sheet of frost over my car windscreen every morning. Normal standard Thursday today with 4th grade and 1st grade. First up was 4-1 and we got through the play’s script, but it was definitely quite difficult for a lot of them. I thought again how Japan should really start teaching their kids how to read English from grades 1 or even kindergarten like Hong Kong. It would just help so much more both in terms of the kids’ learning, and also their enjoyment for English. They still did alright and the kids were really helping each other – the teamwork in the 4th grade classes are great! They always tell each other to quiet down if they’re being too rowdy, and they were going around matching their written notes with others who were doing the same role as them, it was really heartwarming to see. 1-1 up next and they were super energetic as usual. Their homeroom teacher and I had a little conversation at the end of the class, and he was really happy and glad that I liked their energy. Turns out that he’s been worried that I’d be annoyed at some of the more energetic kids, and he was like “sorry they don’t listen” but I was like “what nooooooo no no they listen great! I love their energy!” so he was quite surprised and happy about it. I was more surprised, because honestly the kids do listen well even if they might be noisy and energetic. I guess it’s because I’m comparing back to kids in NZ, whilst he’s comparing them with other kids in Japan (who are probably less noisy/energetic and more calm). To me, they’re still very good, well behaved kids. Anyway, they did great with the play practice too, and although their homeroom teacher wasn’t confident that they’d be able to present to 6th grade (my JTE told me this afterwards), I’m sure after this lesson he could see their potential, and see that they’d be perfectly alright!

1-2 was SUPER GREAT with their practice, they were practically perfect and ready to perform! This was all thanks to their homeroom teacher who gave them a pretty stern talk after the 1st practice (where they were a bit wriggly and playing around) and asked them things like “Would you be able to show this performance to the 6th graders?” to which some kids replied “No. At this level it’d be embarrassing”, and then she got them to point out what they should improve on (less talking while waiting, no messing around, saying lines loudly) and they were absolutely perfect in their 2nd and 3rd practices. I was so happy and their homeroom teacher was too. Their pronunciation was also pretty great too! As expected, it’s really just better to start foreign language learning earlier. I think their pronunciation is even better than some of the higher grades! 1-3’s practice was also pretty good, but just a bit less smooth because their homeroom teacher was away. For the first 10 minutes it was just the special needs helper and me, until 5-1’s teacher came to be the “main teacher”, since I’m technically not allowed to teach on my own. Anyway, looking forward to how the kids will do once actually up on stage with an audience! They’re absolutely great in their own classes and their own classrooms, but who knows whether they’ll get stage fright or not (hoping they don’t haha). My JTE is looking forward to it as well since she doesn't get to teach the younger grades at all.

Lunch today with 6-1 was super quiet, because the broadcast today was 5-1’s homeroom teacher reading a storybook in Osaka dialect. The kids were dead quiet and all listening so intently, it was fascinating to watch. All the other teachers were saying to 5-1’s teacher how interesting it was to hear a story read in Osaka dialect, and how all the kids found it super interesting as well. The intonation differences seemed to be the most interesting point for all of them. Spent the lunchtime outside again today, but it was a super short one because of today’s schedule change – we started everything 10 minutes earlier, and lunchtime was shortened, so all in all school finished 40 minutes earlier. I think it was something to do with health checks that were happening in the school gym, or at least I think that’s what my JTE said. Cleaning time was smooth again, so no problems there.

Period 5 with 4-2 and I feel like it went a bit smoother than 4-1, more in terms of our (the teachers) workflow and how we ran the lesson. More kids were able to take down notes on how to pronounce their lines as I read the story, and they seem to be on the more confident side that they’ll be able to say the lines, so that was good. I really don't like how we have to write down katakana-ised pronunciation above the English sentences in order for them to remember it. It’s probably the worst way to remember English, cause they’re not remembering English but Japanese, but if we don’t write the pronunciation in katakana, they aren’t able to remember it because there’s so many sentences/words. It’s a lose-lose situation. Maybe next year I’ll do what other ALTs have done and changed the play story to a simpler one with easier lines to memorise.

Got off work promptly at 16:00 today in order to go home to get my snowboard and stuff, and then drove to an ALT friend’s house where he helped me do my snowboard bindings! After that we went together to the Secret Santa gift exchange organised by another ALT. We met at this café I’d actually wanted to try for a long time – Gram! They serve the fluffy pancakes that Japan’s famous for, and they were indeed very fluffy and jiggly! But I feel like I like the ricotta cheese pancakes more at the place in the station though. It was a really happy gathering – there were some cool presents and stuff. Shopping in Japan for Christmas presents is SO much easier – there’s so much more variety and you can get good as presents for cheap as! I got a Lush bath bomb. After the party finished (the café closed at 20:00) a few of us went to eat sushi, since we weren’t full from the pancakes. After that I dropped my friends off and drove home.