Feeling a bit sick

All day I was feeling ill today. I really didn’t know what it was, but I was sluggish. I think it could have been the weather since it has started to get pretty warm recently and I think the atmospheric pressure is changing. I wake up having dry mouth and a terrible sore throat. It’s not pretty. Its nice getting up later now, since the new semester changed.

The first class I had today was with 9th grade yuri. They were reviewing what they learned last week on the topic of Fast Food. We brought the pictures and the menus from the restaurants that they will go to next year. CP was pushing a lot of role-playing into today’s lesson. I think that ordering is one of the most challenging things they will experience in the states; the hardest thing for them is probably paying though. We practiced a few things in the book and then she wrote a dialogue on the board and the students went from there to order. They used the menu in the book to order. The students did pretty well though, so that was a good thing.

The second class I had was with 7th grade ume. We went over a few things like the days of the week and the months of the year. They got introduced to the new format and had a diary to fill out. They took the time to write a lot of the information that we will cover on a weekly basis today. They had a lot to write down and I’m not sure if they all understood what they had to do. It was really moving a bit fast for them and since starting next week they will start to practice for the recitation contest. So we really needed to have them finish all the basic stuff today. They also all wrote their name on a paper so that we could remember their names faster. There was one girl whose name was Riria that is a very unusual name for a Japanese person. I think that the parents are becoming really creative with names.

The third class was with 11th grade yuri and things didn’t go very well for me. The plan was to have them learn some grammar and then be able to use it with the vocabulary that they have studied in the past week. They just really weren’t into it today. They are a very moody class and they can swing from being one of the best to one that is very lethargic. Today was a very slow day for them because they learned a bit of grammar. I can really tell that most students don’t like grammar by the way that they behaved today. They were really slow with understanding it too. The explanation was very short for them too, which might have been a bit difficult for them, but I expected better work from them. I had two students come up to the front of the room to give speeches because they forgot their folders. I wanted to punish someone so that the students know that I’m serious about what I say I’m going to do. The class ended before I knew it and I really didn’t get much participation from the students or as much as I wanted.

The last class today was with 11th grade fuji, and it got worse. They were even more tired because they just had P.E. before and probably had a sugar-filled lunch and lost all the energy from the last class they had. So it was really a struggle to get them going. They also had the similar process of grammar and using of the vocabulary. But they didn’t get much done and I kind of lost control of the class. That really isn’t a good thing, but I think that I will need to find a new strategy for teaching my lessons. I need to make this section more interesting for them. I believe that no one in the class forgot anything, but they were being lazy and probably didn’t understand what they needed to do. There are things that need to be improved in the teaching of this class and with me teaching the class. I need to make this section more interesting and something very tangible for them. I think that it might have been too difficult for them to learn and for them to use properly. The explanation was also very short so I think that needs to change and I need to get on that one.

I wasn’t sure if there was club today or not, but there was. It was only with two students in the high school and we were talking about the future of the club. The leader now will pass it off to the next oldest person in the club, which is someone in the 10th grade. She isn’t the most reliable person in the club, but we have no choice but to appoint her to take the responsibility. I was still stuck at school till around 6:30pm.

I came home and had dinner at Yoshinoya. At yoshinoya, it was very bad because I was so tired that I couldn’t even speak correctly. I was slurring my words in Japanese and it didn’t even make sense to me, but somehow the person taking my order understood. It was a bit embarrassing. I want to cook, but since I have left school late these days it’s hard to manage the time to do it. I also want to have some good food before I leave Japan. I think all of July I will be eating out to get the last taste of Japan before I leave for good.