An average Friday

The first two periods were my 11th graders’ tests. They were pretty good, better than I thought they would be. Some could have done better, but others surprised me. But not all of them did very well. Some of the students that I knew better did the worst. I mean the girls in my club aren’t the best speakers in the world, and they show no progress and I really can’t grasp as to why this occurs. It was really strange that it only was those students that don’t do very well. They really like English and everything and study harder than the other students, but they just can’t do it. It’s very disappointing as a teacher to see that happen. I mean after a year, I still haven’t done much to help them either. I think that’s the worse part. But the other students that I teach did very well. I believe that I set them up for success, which is something that I’m not sure all teachers do, or even do effectively. So I’m glad that things are turning out good.

3rd period was fun because the 7th graders were just counting beans, literally. We played a little game with them and they had to guess how many beans were in a jar and then we counted them. We broke up the class into groups and they had to count a certain number of beans in a cup and to distribute them to another group once they were finished counting. It usually takes up the whole period so it’s a pretty easy day of just counting.

4th period we began to hit a few bumps in the road. It was very interesting how things progressed today. I think that everything was going fine up to this point because most of what went on today was under my control and I was running the show. But when things turned over, I noticed that my partner was a little short-tempered today. I’m not sure what the reason was, but she’s been acting a bit weird lately. Today the students were quiet at the beginning of class, but later got more talkative; only because the teachers didn’t have an idea of what to do. We weren’t looking at the syllabus and things turned up weird and the oral test changed dates. Our Japanese English teaching partner is still sick and wasn’t able to come to this class with us again. So she had to scream to get the students’ attention. It was weird because when I was doing the example with her in front of the class, she even scolded me to keep with the language, but I just read what was in the book and the odd thing was that she didn’t keep with the language in the book. I’m sure if the students were paying attention, they wouldn’t have understood what was going on. So I wasn’t very happy either. It was a good thing that lunch came soon after this moment.

Then in 5th period she did the same thing. She had scolded the kids, but they weren’t at fault. I really didn’t know what was going on because normally this is the class that I lead, but because of the schedule changed and the timing was off, I don’t teach 10th grade anymore. I’m going to have to remedy that and go at it in a different way to get my classes back. I’m going to have to figure out a way though. I’m not sure what the problems are, but they are building and I need to resist it. I made some mistakes today in class today because I had misinterpreted what was being asked of the students. But CP had changed the directions again, so not only were the students confused, the teachers were too.

6th period was much like the last class when I could tell that CP was a bit impatient. There were a lot of mistakes on the board and in the speech and everything. So I’m not sure what is going on with CP. It might be the weather, but then again, I don’t want to be making excuses. If I was wrong, I’d admit it and move on. I’m not too proud to say I was wrong.

I came home and made some food for myself again. I hate Japanese supermarkets because everything is too fresh and they don’t add preservatives. I never thought that I would actually not like that. But that means that everything I buy expires within a few days. I just don’t have the time to make all the food that I buy, so most of which go bad really quick. I was able to even watch a bit of TV movie. I saw half of Hollow man on channel 4, then I came back to finish typing this up. I’ve got to go to sleep soon. I haven’t even prepared the lesson for my student tomorrow; I’m such a bad teacher.