Weird Wednesday

Today was a weird day. Hashimoto-sensei was going to be away so he scheduled for Suzuki-sensei (male) to take his place. That was fine - great! Suzuki-sensei is the cute little old Japanese man who put himself in the corner last week. LOL

So, the first class went really well. Suzuki-sensei is a real ham and he made me and the kids laugh. Everything went very smoothly and in fact this class was the best one at the warm-up. They loved it! I told them no cheating - no copying for the worksheet, but ya... they didn't listen. *sigh* Well, I hope they learned the concept!

Second class, with Suzuki-sensei (woman). This is the class with all boys. I had this really great lesson planned but the boys were too busy yelling at each other and 2 of them got into a fight a couple times (it was scary for ME) and they damaged some of my belongings. It was hard not to scream at them or break down into tears. I felt that neither would do any good so I tried to lower my voice and persevere. It was heartbreaking for me though. I really tried to come up with a lesson these boys would like and they stomped all over it. :/ Rough class and I feel sort of bad saying it but when Suzuki-sensei informed me that the next week the second graders would be visiting universities and that class was cancelled I felt immense relief. Hopefully this will give me enough of a break to regroup and come at them again. They are all very rowdy boys and they all seem to loathe English. I guess at the base of it, my feelings are hurt. I really worked hard to think of a fun, engaging lesson that was tailored to THEM and it didn't matter. :/ Well, live and learn

Then it was Suzuki-sensei (man) and me again! The dream team lives on! This class was much quieter and worked harder on the worksheet. Going around I could see that it really had clicked for some kids and that made my day!

Then as I was gearing up for the next class with Suzuki-sensei (it was a Suzuki day for me!), he informed me that Hashimoto-sensei had changed the schedule again and they were not slotted for English. So I kept working on my fast-finishers. For final products, I have 2 crossword puzzles and one word search. I'm quite proud of them. Especially since one of my crossword puzzles has kanji for all the clues. That took me FOREVER to make. I only knew one of the kanji the puzzle required so I've been doing a lot of research. The other puzzle gives clues in English and the word search is fruits. I'm immensely proud of them. :D I'm working on 2 other crossword puzzles now and thinking of doing another word search. I hope the students like them as much as I liked putting them together. :D

After work I was supposed to go help the elders teach English class but then I FINALLY got my lesson plans for this Friday. Eep! So I stayed home (also it's pouring rain and pitch black out so I felt safer staying in - hope the elders forgive me :/) and atm I'm writing this but I also will be making lesson plans. I'm excited to go back to the Choukaku Shien (in spite of leaving last week feeling like the worst person ever)! They are so kind to me there and everyone really tries to engage me in conversation.

Oh also: while I was waiting for the bus, the baseball team jogged by. Most of those teenage boys took off their hats as they passed me/greeted me. I was really touched. :)

Well I'm off to make lesson plans! XOXO, A

Funny moments:

(slightly inappropriate) I forgot this one from yesterday! While I was teaching Mr. Toki was walking around and checking for understanding. On the fill in the blank worksheet (in which I put new words into the text they've been studying) one of the blanks was changed from "men of ninety" to "bulls of ninety." I made the whole story about cows with extraordinary longevity as opposed to humans. Anyway, while I was reading, I got to "bulls." I slowed down and enunciated it to help the students write it down. Mr. Toki followed up with, "Big bulls!" It was hard not to burst into laughter as it didn't sound like he said "bulls." I turned to him and said, "AC/DC?" - To check if he understood what he had said and he just blinked at me. "Nevermind!" Oh man it was hard to not bust a gut!

Today one of the vice-principals approached me and (he speaks a little more English than I speak Japanese) asked me about a nickname. I told him my nicknames are all longer than my name. He didn't understand what I was trying to motion and what I was saying so Oikawa-sensei stepped in and translated. Then Oikawa-sensei asked, "What does your name mean?" -"Gracious and prayerful." -"Gracious and powerful!" I laughed and said, "Powerful *flexed my arm*, no. Prayerful *put my hands together* yes." Then they asked me several times to say both words and attempted to say them themselves. I never realized how closely they sound until the Japanese pointed it out to me. I said "prayerful" so many times it started to sound like a pseudoword to me! In any case, good times!