Better than average Tuesday

I know that for some of you, reading my journal and knowing EXACTLY everything I did isn’t your cup of tea, but this is something for me to remember when I’m at the age when I can’t remember. I want to be able to recall them (via google blog search) when I’m thinking about some games or some activities that I did that worked well. Who knows when I might need this stuff later on in life. I’m such a pack-rat. I know that it would have been helpful to have some of the things that I learned in Key Club with me now and I could use a lot of the games in my classes or a lot of the leadership stuff. But I’m managing I think.

Anyways, back to what I did today. The first class 2^nd period with 8^th grade ran was interesting. They really are very good at giving speeches. Today they had to give their introduction and opening remarks and closing remarks to their speeches, which is really quick. We were focusing on some points that they needed to give a good presentation and they did very well. I was really impressed by them. They have a good shot and winning in the contest next month and a lot of their English skills are pretty on the dot; at least with memorizing speeches.

The next class that I taught didn’t go as well as I thought they would have. 3^rd period with 8^th grade kiku, was like pulling teeth. They have recently been getting lazy and haven’t been paying too much attention in the other English classes and it has shown in my class. Their grammar and listening ability have greatly decreased. I think that they have been less motivated than usual. I think they also might be getting too tired of practicing for the speech contest. My explanation of what they needed to do wasn’t very good either. It was all review from the last week, but they acted as if it was the first time they had ever seen it. I kept getting distracted by CP today too. I really hate it actually. They were able to do it, but after they started a few people. CP shouldn’t have called on who to speak first because she picked the only student that she knew and she was a bad student so no one could really understand what to do. They were able to pick it up after I had to help them out a lot while they were in front of the room. They need to practice more and that’s the remedy to their improvement.

The next class with 7^th grade kiku was a review class really. The schedule got all mixed up and they started over again with this class, so CP made the mistake of doing the same lesson twice. They had already completed the paper that was given, but we never went over the answers, so that’s what we did. Then we played the game that they have done three times already. We did change that up a little bit though, so it was a bit different. But we let them do that all the way through till the end of class. I didn’t think that it was that productive, but it’s ok since it’s just for review. They will have a little test next class.

The last class of the day was with 11^th grade fuji and we played a game that I learned in College. It’s called Do it! Say it! Draw it! And that’s exactly what they needed to do. I had to give a few examples so that they understood how to play and I went through the rules with them. They did very good and answered really quickly. I believe that students will always find a way to accomplish the task that was given to them, no matter how much they complain about it. They complained a little saying that they couldn’t do it and it was so hard, but eventually they were all able to do it. It was a pretty good game and it was very interesting to see them do it. I’m glad that it worked well and gave them all something to do. I think they will like the last game too and that will be it for this class. They only have one more left and I will never teach them again… kinda sad really.

After school, I hung out at the part-time teachers’ office. Students aren’t able to come into the teachers’ room because we will have finals next week, so it was very quiet. I was talking to a few of the English teachers about English things and actually many other things too. It was fun and I enjoyed it there. A lot of the teachers came and went, but it was a good conversation. They were explaining to me the lineage of the Emperor. There was a big announcement that one of the princesses is pregnant. The big deal is that it’s not from the eldest son. That means that if the child to be born is a male, it would be the next to sit in the throne after Prince Naruhito. It would just be weird since it wouldn’t really be the eldest son and just the next male person in the family. I’m explaining this poorly, sorry for that. Just know that there hasn’t been a male born into the Imperial Family for 40 years and the next one would be Emperor, unless a law is changed, which might happen, but right now, it doesn’t look like it. My source is Mainichi news, so go check that out if you’re interested. I’m going to sleep now since I have to get up early and it’s already late.

I had dinner at Bamiyan again and got some healthy rice dinner, which wasn’t as good as last night’s.