An exhausting Wednesday
I was tired today to begin with. I’ve been waking up periodically throughout the night, but not because it’s hot and actually quite the opposite. It’s getting cold and sleeping without a blanket isn’t enough anymore, and I had to start using a blanket. I’m using a thin one, but I think that isn’t enough either. I have a thicker one, but then it would be too thick. I think it is affecting my dreams too and lately I’ve been having some pretty weird ones.
The first class of the day was 11th grade yuri. Last year, I didn’t really enjoy teaching them so much since I always messed up teaching them. But this year, I’ve gotten along with them quite well and I’m really enjoying it. Today, I would have to do it on my own since my Japanese English teacher partner wasn’t going to come with me today. The lesson was out of the textbook, which is something I don’t like to teach from, but it went well. It was fairly smooth and the students understood the material and the lesson. Things went well. I did a lesson to help them get ready for the listening test that’s coming up.
The second class was 8th grade yuri and they only had to do a lesson out of the textbook. I think that next year, I might have to rely a lot on the textbook to get me out of a lot of the planning involved with teaching English. We did the lesson on daily schedule today. For this class, they were able to do it and they are a high level class. They have the ability, but sometimes they get sidetracked and start talking about other things too. They aren’t loud as the other classes too, so it’s tolerable. They learn the material and that’s what’s most important.
The third class was 10th grade fuji and they were having a bit of problems today. Well maybe it wasn’t today, but they had problems in grammar class with another English teacher, so there was someone from the first year teachers group or the Red group to come watch to see if there were any problems in the oral class. But there weren’t since they are good students. They were actually very good today too. They participate a lot and really get into it. Today we just played a game with coins and a piece of paper. They enjoyed the game and it was explained to them very detailed and it takes them a bit to understand what’s going on, but once they get it, they get it.
The fourth class was 11th grade kiku and they had me a bit off guard. Since this class is usually on Fridays and will go back in October, they have a different amount of classes than the other students in their grade level. So I had to adjust what they learned so that they would all be on the same page for midterms and things like that. Some of the 11th graders will have more time and some have less, but they will all have the same amount to prepare for the oral and listening test so that it would be fair. Today we did a listening activity using the example of gone with the wind. It was incredibly boring though and I could sense that from the students. I tried my best to make it fun, but it wasn’t. I had to muster through it and finally got to something more fun. I had them compose a little sentence or two to pick which they had preferred more, watching movies in a theater or at home with a DVD or video.
The fifth class was 9th grade kiku and the work was out of the textbook. They are really tired for some reason. I’m not sure why the energy in the room seems dead. They are a really high level class and have great comprehension. We were speeding through the lesson today and I mean blazing fast. I think we’ve gotten further today than any other day. Usually we finish before we get to the speaking practice section but today we finished that section.
The sixth class was 9th grade Fuji. At first, it wasn’t easy to get them going. They were quiet like last week and it’s very intimidating. But after a little bit, they started to participate and get involved like they did last semester. They aren’t as excited about English like they used to be, but I think that it’s only the beginning of the semester and they need to get warmed up to it like last year. We ended a bit faster than the previous class and I think it’s because I just go faster. I try to pace myself, but I usually always go a bit faster than CP does. We weren’t going blazing fast either, we were going a bit slow in my opinion, so I’m thinking that I just left some things out in the explanation and for some reason I ditched things when the students didn’t seem too interested. I didn’t want to lose their attention, since once that’s gone, it’s pretty much hopeless. We just did the book work today and it turned out to be enough for them this time around. I think that they need some extra stuff outside of the book to get them going, but I think that will come near the end of the month, since they will start practicing for their school plays soon and then they will start to study about going overseas to America.
English club was after school today. I went into the Language Laboratory first before the club meeting time and I set some things up. I wanted to get the computers online before the students got there so they would be able to do the research that they wanted to do yesterday, but couldn’t since they didn’t have access to the internet yesterday. I think that they really want to be able to use the technology that the school has, but they hardly ever get a chance to. They were having trouble using the internet and how to use the printer and I had to show them, even though it is all in Japanese. I thought that was a bit weird, but I think they understand it better, when I explain it to them in English. They were mostly just cutting out cardboard pieces for the decorations of the club room for the Culture Festival at the end of next month. They have a lot of work ahead of them and I’m doing my best to help out. I think that they see that I’m in two clubs and I don’t know if they think that I would rather be in the other club than in the English club. It’s hard to balance both and since I’m in the English club more often because I have to be, it doesn’t make it easier. I think that we got a lot finished today too.
I stayed after school for a little bit longer because I wanted to talk to the tennis coach about when practices were since this is a special holiday weekend and the schedules will change a lot. But the coach wasn’t there, so I had to wait around. I talked to a couple of other teachers while he was gone and we just joked around, even though they had a lot of work left. I feel kind of bad that I always take up their time and I never really have anything to do and I can’t really help them either. This was about 7pm too so it’s very late, for them and for me. I left soon after and I met up with another teacher as we both made our getaway from the school. I have a long weekend so that’s cool.
