First Full Week

Due to tomorrow being a national holiday and there being some sort of community festival on Saturday, I had today and tomorrow off. I figured I could take a little time to blog about last week. I've now had 16 of my 18 classes (of the two I didn't have last week, once the Japanese Teacher of English [JTE] was going to be somewhere else that period so no class and the other was a third year class on a practice testing day). The students are fairly bright and for the most part very easy to teach. Of course there are a few who are clearly trouble, but even they are respectful. I think my favorite classes so far have been the first years. They seem to be the most energetic and the most excited to participate.

I've decided to include some pictures of what I've been doing. Below are activities I've made for my classes. The first was for the first year classes (6th Grade equivalent). They were practicing the word "where" and prepositions in, on, by, and under. I had them fill in the blanks with one object, one place, and preposition of their choosing. After that was done, I would pick an object, read it aloud and then the class would ask in unison, "where is my ____?" I'd pick a place from the pile (I had cut both objects and places and put them in piles on my desk) and answer, "It's in the ____." I told them not to worry about the prepositions in order to have a higher success rate. I believe "cat in the box" was the most popular, though "hamburger on the Moon" was also very popular.

I regretted the inclusion of "shoes" as they haven't studied how to properly use "are" yet, so every time I drew shoes, I was greeted with, "where is my shoes?" I guess I know for next time.

The next was for the second year students (7th graders). It was based on a dialogue in their textbook in which Mike was speaking with a doctor who diagnosed him with a cold. It was the same as regular Battleship, except they only had three ships (one 4 spacer, one 3 spacer, and one 2 spacer) and instead of numbers and letters, they would ask if so-and-so had a something-something. In case it's too small to read, the ailments are cold, broken arm, sotmachache, fever, and headache.

On this one, I regret writing "Their Ships" down below as technically it should have been "His/Her Ships" considering they weren't playing against multiple people. I feel less bad about this one though. I feel like most people say their instead of his or her regardless of what's actually correct. Still, something to avoid next time.

The next activity I was only able to use once due to the crazy practice testing schedule for the third years (in Japan, everything builds up to the High School Entrance Exam, which determines how good of a high school you can get into, which determines how good of a college you can get into, which determines how good of a job you can get, so the test at the end of 9th grade is incredibly important). Regardless, this activity was a competition between the different rows they were seated in. They were studying how to say that they didn't know when asked questions using to be, which is kind of weird because the order when you ask questions is different than when you make statements. For instance, "What time is it?" and "I don't know what time it is." The verb moves around, so I made an activity in which they had to unscramble the word order. There were five students in each row, so the first student would write the words in the correct order for the first question, and then pass it to the student behind them who would answer the second one, and so forth. The first group to finish with all the answers right would get a point, though usually it ended up being the first group to get four of five right. I actually had five rounds ready, but neither of the classes had time for more than the first two shown below.

I think this one went pretty well. You can also see here the evidence of the whiteout tape used pretty widely here. I don't know that I've seen it outside of Japan. I've been using it pretty frequently. I've already used half of the one I bought at the dollar store just before I started working. I was surprised to find that even though it's much brighter than the paper, the copier never picks it up. Maybe that's one reason I've already used half of one.

Well, I know there was a request for food, but I don't really have anything to show yet. The school lunches are pretty interesting. Also, they're pretty large and surprisingly tasty. I'll try to sneak pictures of some before I post again. I guess that's all for now though. Thank you for being patient with how long I go between posts. I'm going to attempt to post every weekend, though I tried that last time I was in Japan and it lasted maybe 3 weeks. I'll try to do better this time. がんばります!