Tuesday

Woke up at 7:15am, and bought some breakfast from Lawson on the way to school. Good ol’ vitamin C drink and melon bread. First up today was 4-1 in period 1. It was a decent lesson, but the kids kept forgetting what they had to say for the job interviews (“What do you want to be?” “I want to be a …” “Why?” “Because I like…”). So it wasn’t a bad lesson per say, but I’m just not sure how much English learning/practice was actually happening. Same with 4-2 and surprisingly 4-3 as well today! Decent lessons, but less English learning seemed to be happening today, when comparing with previous lessons. Had lunch with 4-1 today, and it was pretty fun. They normally eat in their usual desk arrangement (pairs, facing the front), but this week since I’m eating with them, their homeroom teacher allowed them to eat in groups (desks facing each other, more free conversation), so that was nice. Had some good conversations with the girls sitting around me. Today’s lunch was matcha fried bread, wonton soup, and salad. They had lots of salad leftover so the teacher just passed the bowl around, and everyone helped themselves to seconds.

For today’s 6th grade lessons, it was just me and the JHS JTE because my JTE was out on a business trip. The lessons turned out great and were lots of fun! Both 6-1 and 6-2 behaved well, and performed great today. We first had an activity where everyone walked around asking everyone else about their birthday, and writing it down in their textbook. Then we played a game where everyone wrote their birthdays on a small birthday card, which I then shuffled and handed back out to the kids randomly. They then had to go around asking “When is your birthday?” to everyone in order to find the “owner” of the card. Once they found the birthday boy/girl, they’d write the birthday person’s name on the card, and also their name in the “from” section of the card. The kids really loved this game and had a lot of fun trying to return the birthday cards to the correct person. They were also all trying very hard to write each others’ names in English, and I saw/heard a few kids patiently spelling out their names for their partners. After the lessons ended, I had a quick meeting with the JHS JTE for next week’s lesson. Then I had another quick meeting with the Grade 1 teachers for tomorrow’s lesson. Stayed behind a bit today so make some new sports cards for the 1st graders. Got off work around 16:30. Stopped by the bank to update my bank book and pay rent, and then went home.