Good, I guess

Today was good, I guess. I have mixed feelings about today. I think in the morning it started out pretty good. I arrived to school about 50 minutes earlier than I really needed to be there and I had enough energy today even though I had woken up at 4am. That’s a bit early I think and I couldn’t sleep very comfortably, but I still had enough energy to get me through the day.

The first class I had was with the 8th grade. I remember them last year being one of the best classes that I had the pleasure of teaching, but this year, they are really tough to teach. I’m not leading the class, but I’m helping out, but it doesn’t seem like any of the students really care anymore. They are just chatting away and not paying attention anymore. I’m not really sure why that is.

The second class I had was another 8th grade class, but this time I was leading the class. They were pretty good today, even though they could have been better. They didn’t participate as much as I wanted them to participate, but you know you could only push people so far. I don’t think I’m having that great of an impact than I did when I first started working at the school, but I think that I’m more personable than I was when I first started working with these students. I’m starting to learn all their names and getting them to work with me as I teach them English. I’m hearing from students that I haven’t heard from before, but I’m not hearing from the students that I used to… so that’s a bit of an unbalance.

The 3rd class of the day was with the 7th grade kiku. We had them go over some more family terms and getting them familiar with the language that they will need for the English Fun Faire coming up in two months. We are really focusing on family at the beginning of the year, so that they could ask the participants a lot about their families and be able to talk about their own. I think that it’s a good thing, but I think the way that we’re teaching them may be a little confusing. I’m not a professional or anything and I highly doubt that I could be any better and that’s why I don’t stick my business in Junior high school work. I think that it wouldn’t be my place to do that.

The last class of the day was with the 11th grade Fuji. They are something. They really are. It was very loud and I’m not sure why. They had to do an event for the sports festival and they were running a relay during lunch so I’m not sure how they still had enough energy to be loud in class. I would have thought that each one of them would be dead tired with all the physical things that they need to do during the day. We had to struggle through the lesson. It wasn’t easy at first and at some points it was a little too quiet. Some times they paid attention and some times they didn’t. When I was pronouncing things for them, they were very attentive. I guess they really wanted to see if they could tell the difference between the V sound and the B sound and the F versus the TH sounds. For the last part, I had them do some group work which is never really a good idea, but I want them to get ready to do more presentations and for them to speak more. I really think that’s my job to get them to speak more and I would like to get them to speak everyday so that they get a chance to, but since I’m being watched, I don’t want to stray away from the standard too much. Although I’m willing to try more things out to see what will work and what won’t. Everyone has a different way to do things and I’m just waiting for my opportunity to really bust loose and go crazy with my lessons.

After that I spent the remainder of my time at school in the Language Laboratory. I was testing out all the laptop computers to see which ones allowed me to sign on. It turns out that out of 39 computers, only 3 would let me log on and of those three, zero let me onto the internet. That was a bummer. So I recruited some help to get the internet problem fixed. I wanted to see what I could do and see if I could fix the problem myself, but I didn’t want to mess anything up since I’m don’t want to be responsible for everyone not having a chance to use the internet. I found out the password to the server too and hacked into that. I was shocked that I got into it and probably shouldn’t have, but we ended up fixing it on a few computers. The problem for me was that the computer that let me logged on still had a problem with the internet and there probably wasn’t anything I could really do anyways to get me online. I’m thinking about taking my laptop to school to see if I could use the WIFI network there and since I know the password, I might be able to get online and use this computer.

We had an English club meeting today too. I was going back and forth with fixing the laptop and doing the things for the club. They were working on decorations today and cutting out letters for the room. They were using cardboard and it made a big mess. Most of the students had to leave early, since Junior high school students must leave by 5pm, although tonight they didn’t leave till 5:30pm. That’s a bit late since it got darker earlier today. I think it even started to rain just a little bit. I think that it’s a good thing that we’ve started getting some things done for the culture festival and since its 6 weeks away I think that time will go by really quickly for them and for me. I just don’t want to fall behind, although compared with last year, they are already behind. They had most of the stuff finished for the last culture festival by summer time. But I think if they got more help that they would be able to finish things much faster. Our membership is a bit low and the turnout is lower than that. I think that next year, there won’t be a high school group since no one will be left and no one in the club is in the 10th grade this year. That would be bad since I’m doing two clubs this year. I will need to get some new members somehow and I’m not sure how I’m going to convince some students to join.

I left for home around 6:30pm. That’s a bit late for me and there was a student from last year that was talking to some teachers. She had a tennis racket so I think that she might have joined the tennis team for a practice or something. So I might see her around again, maybe. I like the feeling when old students return to the school. That’s the best feeling for a teacher to have. So for those of you, who had a really good teacher, go back to the school and let them know that. They will really appreciate it. I know I would and I have gone back to tell my teachers that too. I think that’s one of the reasons why I decided to become a teacher, but the problem is that since I’m going to be leaving so soon, that I won’t get that chance for students that I know to come back to say hi, and if they do, it wouldn’t be for me, it’d be for other teachers. I don’t get a chance to teach seniors this year, and it was the same for me last year. So I haven’t had the chance to teach anyone who has already graduated. And for the 11th grade students this year, I won’t even be able to see them graduate even though I’ve taught them for two years. That’s a bit sad for me since I would have like to see them graduate. I think that those students would come back to visit me too, but I guess if they were to do that, they’d have to come to America, which I think some of them will.