a usual Tuesday
Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. I had my usual 4 classes and they were their usual selves. I did have breakfast this morning at home instead of at work, and that caused me to be very hungry before lunch.
The first class was 8th grade ran and they were loud today. I had to take a paper away from a student because it was work from another class. I don’t want to be doing things like that, but it was really getting on my nerves today. Since the Japanese English teacher never helps in this class. She actually adds to the noise that the students make because she’s just having a conversation with them instead of encouraging them to listen. That’s bad on her part and it really does take away from the students. It’s a shame because they have the possibility to improve their English to such a high level too, but they just don’t give a shit to study or even pay attention. And I know that there are many things that contribute to this too.
The next class though was another 8th grade class. Kiku is the lowest English level, but at least they pay attention and they try. I have one of the toughest students in this class, but in this class, she’s working very hard, so I’m happy about that. Last year when she was in the 7th grade, she was almost expelled because she kept on destroying school property and being disruptive in class. She didn’t care about anything and I felt for her homeroom teacher who was having many difficulties with her, but this year she’s a changed person. She hasn’t broken anything in a long while, and she’s really trying in my class. Today she asked to sit in the front of the room so she could see better, she forgot her book, so I let her borrow mine and she was taking notes and everything. I mean no one takes notes at this school, so I was shocked to see her taking notes. It’s a contrast because the students who could speak English and are very talented take it for granted, while these students bust their butts and really make an effort to learn. It really shows.
The class after that was 7th grade kiku. At first I thought their English level was very high, but now I just think that they are just fair. From working with them at the Hakone Seminar over the summer, I realized that they need a little more work. We started something different with them today since they have more classes than the other classes do. We did a little activity with matching verbs to go with the right activity. It wasn’t explained very clearly since I don’t really understand the point, but I think that they did the best that they could. Although I feel that it wasn’t really their best work. I don’t really think that today they were trying really hard. We pretty much did this for the whole period and had them in groups to work in matching verbs with activities.
The 11th grade fuji class today was a bit out of control. I think that I don’t like it when my 11th grade classes are out of control. All I did today was give them time to work on their speech manuscript. Some students started composing it today and finished it today, which lead me to believe that I’m wasting a lot of time if I’m spreading it over a couple of weeks. CP thinks that I’m too nice to them, but I’m just making them do things in steps, but I think for the next section I’m going to have to push them a little harder and not give them so much time to write and memorize. I need to add some thinking activities in there and to get them to communicate better. It was getting very hectic with the papers too. I needed to make sure that I got all the papers so that I could trade papers back and forth and so they would take the necessary steps. But I’m being too anal about the steps and I think that on the next test, they are completely responsible for their own learning. I think that I’m walking them through it and holding their hand when I shouldn’t be. So I’m going to give them a little rude awakening on the next section, but it will be more research oriented and be in partners. That in itself should make it harder.
English club after school was very productive. Most of the girls in the club showed up today and we finished a lot of things. I think that we will really be able to finish before next weeks’ deadline and we will get everything together in time. So I’m happy about that. I got to leave earlier today so I got dinner at Bamiyan. It stopped raining on the way home, so that’s good too. I just know that today was a day that I needed to reflect on how I’m teaching and that there are many things that I still need to improve on.
