Bored on Thursday

Today, I woke up surprisingly early since I didn’t have to go to work until later. I still haven’t gotten into the rhythm of going to school yet, so I’m trying to get into a groove. I’m still having to guess when to wake up and head off to work and when to get on the trains. I caught an earlier train today, which in somehow I still arrived at the same time I usually do. I swear I’m in a time warp or something. I started to read on the train though. I haven’t read anything in a long time and now I have the time to do it and I get to sit down some times.

At school I ate breakfast and then got started with preparing for my classes. The first class I had today 3rd period was with 9th grade yuri. They are a very good class and they were doing a role-play of ordering. They really did a good job too. They got menus from McDonalds, which were divided by customer and clerk. They had to practice ordering and then they even had to work on adding up the prices too. They were able to, which was a good thing. I was really impressed with this class. They were loud at times, but at least they know what they are doing.

The second class I had today for 4th period was with 7th grade ume. They were working on listening to the R and L sounds. CP planned for them to get ready for the recitation contest and wanted them to listen to the English naturally first before they get the scripts. It’s a good idea, but I’m not sure that it will be followed that way, because of the school’s politics. So we were practicing a lot of things today. They had to stand up and move to the side of the room if they heard and R word versus an L word. Then they played a little game with finger grabbing when they heard an R word. The students like it, which is good. But I’m not sure how effective it is. But as long as they are enjoying it, it’s all good.

The 5th period class I had today was with 11th grade yuri. They were lazy today and not so motivated in learning English. They weren’t bad, but just a bit lazy. I’m wondering if it is the assignments that I have for them to do that make it so hard or if they just aren’t trying anymore. I give a vocabulary test every week that should be easy, but the scores really don’t reflect that. That really is a shock to me because I made them to be easy, but I guess that’s all up to perspective. I had some of the students share their letters to the government, which were ok. There were a lot of mistakes, but I wanted them to try to speak, so it was ok. I then went onto the listening practice and read the dialogue and they had to hear the answers too. They weren’t written on the board. It was pretty impressive that most of them got all right or 4 out of 5 right. I thought it was pretty difficult and I probably couldn’t do it. Then I finished the class with them working in pairs and thinking of new ways to improve upon the environment.

The last class of the day was with 11th grade fuji. Things were better today, but they were still loud. I think I handled them better, but they were still loud. I think that they were at least interested and still trying, but that could also be the reason for their loudness. I gave them big hints for the vocabulary quiz and went over it many times before I passed it out. They still didn’t do very well and I even left the hints on the board and pointed them out on the test and they still didn’t get it. So I guess they get what they deserve. I had to write all the answers for the listening practice on the board because I didn’t think that they could handle hearing all the questions and answers. I think that was a pretty good guess too. So I covered that and in writing all the answer choices on the board I made a spelling mistake, but left it on the board. No one caught it until I pointed it out. I let the class know that I made a mistake and gave the person who could point it out with two Bryan Bucks. There was only one student that got 5 out of 5 on the listening practice and I have her a Bryan buck too. It took them about 10 minutes for them to find the mistake though, which is a bit sad, but they found it. I think that they enjoyed the class much better today and they were participating a lot.

After that I had pretty much finished everything. I scored all the quizzes and got everything set for the Friday classes. I was very bored after that and I went over to the part-time teachers’ office and hung out for a long while. I didn’t go to club today since CP was there and she was taking care of club. I was thinking about playing some tennis, but it was raining a little and I didn’t see any of the girls practicing. I was talking with the English teachers there and they were very busy. I ended up staying after school till around 7pm. We talked about a lot of things like our plan for a one day excursion during Golden Week. I didn’t realize that we would be going this Sunday since Golden week is this week. That was a bit quick for me. I let them know that I only have about 7 more weeks left working at the school. Probably less since there will always be schedule changes and many events coming up. I was able to help another teacher with a computer problem that she was having, so I felt happy about that.

I’m debating whether I should start letting students know that I’m studying Japanese or not. I think that they will continue to speak English with me, but I’m not too sure about that. I want to practice more so I could actually improve. I’m down to the home stretch and I think that if I didn’t take this opportunity it would be a waste. I should start and really work at it.

I left school and walked with the teachers to the station. I had dinner at MOS burger at Ishikawa cho station. I ordered quite a bit and was surprised that it wasn’t enough to make me full. It was enough to make me not hungry, but not full. So I’m wondering why that is.

I came home and started working on memorizing some songs because I might have to sing it tomorrow. I think that I need to find a good song to sing for the 9th grade trip to Gotemba too. I need to have an impressive performance. I will probably sing a song both in English and Japanese. I need to pick a popular song in both languages that aren’t too difficult for the students. Anyways, it just turned midnight and I should get to sleep even though I’m not tired.