Things were better today

I mean I didn’t get to sleep in too late since I actually had work today. The first day of work in February, this isn’t bad since it’s the second week of the month. My first class was 3rd period starting around 10 minutes before 11am. It was a 7th grade class, one of the higher levels so it wasn’t that bad. They at times can be quite loud, but what else would you expect from them? What we did in class today was an interview practice. We had the students get into 6 groups of 5 people and each student plus myself, were given a piece of paper that we had to ask questions and write down the answers. It would list things that you would ask anyone you would meet for the first time. Like what are your hobbies, where are you from, what kind of Japanese food do you like, who’s your favorite actor or actress? Things like that. There were about 6 questions that you had to ask and answer in a time limit of one minute. We would go at this with group a and group b, then we would have group b rotate, so that they have new partners each time. And each time, the time limit would be decreased and they would have to do it 5-10 seconds faster. We were trying to improve their fluency for the English Fun Faire coming up. We went at it till the last 10 minutes in class and then we would ask around and see who matched our own answers and write down their name. It was a fun activity and I think they are prepared enough for the fun faire.

For our 4th period class we had the 8th graders. They are quite an amusing bunch. We had them work on their speech introductions and conclusions since the next class we have with them will be the test. Their test consists of memorizing their speech for the speech contest. I’ve gotten many students who want me to help them with their speeches so they could win. We just did a little bit to introduce the topic to them and then we just let them go. It was extremely quiet in this class, which is really not typical at all. They had to rewrite their entire speech onto another piece of paper so that took a lot of time. With the remaining 10 minutes in class, we had some students go up to the front of the room and give their introductions and their conclusion. It was funny sounding because it sounded so incomplete.

The 5th period 8th grade class was much the same thing, but they were very chatty. They are the troublemaker class, which is a little unsettling since we used to begin the day with this class, and now we end the day with this class. We meaning me and CP. Well actually, I used to begin the day with this class, but now we both end the day with this class. The assignment was the same, they just had to prepare for their speeches and in this class we had about half the class speak before time was up.

I hung around school till pretty late today because I hadn’t worked all month and wanted to be available to the teachers who needed some last minute help with the speeches or things for the upcoming finals. I did a lot of studying of Japanese today starting with kanji. I studied about 50 kanji today and now beginning the review of those 50 that I started before. They probably aren’t the most common, but it’s a good start to get to know the other characters. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing that I’m using the company time to study for myself because I’m available for the other teachers if they need help, otherwise I’d just leave. So it’s a little weird, but at least I get a lot of help from the other teachers around me as well. I think that’s a good balance for the both of us.