a fairly good day

I had a fairly good day today. Things went back to normal and I think that having things good and prepared is good to get things going right.

I only had 4 classes today, so it wasn’t so bad and I got to sleep in a little. But I ended up being a little late since I couldn’t get up early enough to walk to the station. I had to catch the bus and go the more expensive way.

I arrived to school at just the time that I wanted to arrive to. I think that it was perfect timing. I think that me having a lighter lunch is also a good idea too. I don’t feel so sick afterwards. I think that since the weather is changing because of the seasonal changes, I’m starting to feel a bit weird and sick a little.

The first class of the day was with the 8th grade Ran. They are a loud group of girls. The lesson of the day was about Weekend plans.

The second class was 8th grade Kiku. The same lesson as the last class so I pretty much did the same thing. But this was when I realized I was having a good day. The students were actually a bit better than the class before this one. That meant that I’m really getting to the students because at the beginning they weren’t very interested because they didn’t understand much, but I can tell that they are really trying to learn now and to the other classes are actually getting worse because they think they know it and don’t care as much. So all the classes that I’m leading are making a lot of improvement and that’s something that I really would like to see more of. We went a bit slower and I introduced things a bit more so that the students would get a better background of what I was talking about. I think that I’ve got to get used to that more since I tend to forget that they have no idea what I’m talking about most of the time.

The third class of the day was with the 7th grade kiku. One of the students had given me a picture from the Hakone Seminar from the summer session in August. I thought that I was really nice of her since I’m not leading her class and I have never talked to her. But I think that it was a nice gesture by her. Another teacher gave it to me and told me who it was from, so that was cool. I was happy about that. The lesson of the day was still sports, but which they found to be better and if they liked watching or playing sports and which one they liked to play or watch. Then after that we got started on the Aladdin drama that they have to memorize for a festival that is coming up. I’m not sure exactly which one it is, but I’m guessing that it’s the cultural festival at the end of the month. All the students will be paying attention for that since I think most of them like to act and role play.

The last class of the day for me was 11th grade fuji. A lot of girls in this class are crazy. Just crazy, and the class started off right after lunch so of course as I walk in everyone is still eating and it’s a mess. The chalkboard wasn’t erased and it was just terrible. We got started on the lesson about their favorite movies and I wanted them to start to compose a bit of it using some examples and splitting it into at least 3 parts. I know that I was asking a bit much of them today, but I would rather push them to get all that I can, than to assume that they couldn’t do it and just make them do less. I think that it wouldn’t be fair to the other classes if that was the case, so I’m pushing them to do more. They like my class and they like me as a teacher because I get along with them very well. I just need to be stricter with these things and to be able to get them going on learning. Composing is very difficult for them because they aren’t used to doing that in English or even in Japanese. So I think that at least making them go for it will be good practice for them as they get ready for their exams. I think that I’ll start to introduce more things to help them get ready for their Entrance Exams next year.

After that, I had a class off, but I went to the L.L. and worked on some stuff for a little bit. I wanted to get some lesson planning finished for my Saturday classes. I have been working on something that would involve her getting started on a project. But I’m not sure what kind of project that I want her to do yet. I want some of her opinions on the topic and I want to see where she wants to go with it.

Then there was English club. Only one student was able to make it today, which is really sad and she was very late. We went over the outline of what we still need to do for the cultural festival and put some deadlines on when we need to finish them. That was it for club today too.

Then after that I started to make the Oral Communication listening test for the students. It will be their first and we’ve gone over everything that will be on the test. I expect them to do well, even though it was meant to differentiate the top students from the lower performing students. So it needs to be a bit difficult so we could spread out their points. I think that during the Oral test, most of the points will be fairly standard since I don’t want to discourage them from speaking or even trying. It was pretty interesting, but I hate to listen to my voice on a tape, it just sounds weird.

Then I left to go home. I saw another episode of Everyone loves Raymond tonight. It was funny, but not as funny as the other ones. It was good though, so I enjoyed it. I was watching while I was eating my New England Clam Chowder. It was a nice dinner and a perfect finish to my day. Then I showered and started typing this entry. I still have a lot of catching up to do, so I think that I’ll have to take some of the editing to school so that I could finish it there. Since I’ll have more time because the schedule changed to have 40 minutes in each class tomorrow and the number of classes dropped back to 5 because of a schedule change to the original from April.