Repeat After Me
One of my favourite part of this job is being able to watch the kids grow. I have 2 junior highs, 4 elementary and 4 kindergarten. One of the junior high and an elementary is in the same area, so I know the junior high kids really well cause I've taught them the previous years.
For most kids, when they first enter junior high they're very lively and act like they're still in elementary school. But the workload soon overwhelms them and you can see the lack on interest for anything once the second semester starts. Not for this school's second grader though. Yes they're more well behave, but they're still as silly and goofy as ever. In and out of class.
The kids found my weak spot of being poke/ticklish at around the waist. Sometimes we'll go into this poking game before class starts. Though I always lose cause they gang up on me. Today Chi-san holding my hands while she tried to get No-san to gang up on me. But alas, No-san wasn't in the mood today. Chi-san didn't give up though, and kept holding on to my hands and trying to pull me back to the class. At which point I told her "You're going to fall!" She didn't get what I was saying, so I loosen my grip and let her fall back a little. "See! You're going to fall" I said again. She still didn't get it. So she got the JTE to come over to translate. The JTE got what I said right away, but told Chi-san to try figure it out herself. She did eventually get it (with help from others) and let go.
On to Bingo. I read out the words in which ever order I want, and the kids have started to hint at what words they need to get a Bingo (the prize are stickers). I know the JTE doesn't mind me following through with their requests, but I try not to do it too often. Usually the kids will say "Pick one that starts with 'A'!" or something along the line in Japanese. Today though, Da-kun took it a step further and said in English "Repeat after me, 'Carlo'." Got to give him credit for pulling out all the stops like that, so I smiled and said 'Carlo'.
Last part of the class involved learning a dialog involving taking the correct bus to a given destination. For some reason, the book decide to use "City Hall" as the destination but "Shiyakusho-mae" as the bus stop. I failed to say the "sho" part correctly twice, and kept mispronouncing it as "show". The whole class erupted in laughter. Da-kun pulled the "Repeat after me" phrase again to try and correct me. Ru-san started cracking up whenever I walked by her desk after that.
Of course, the JTE deserves credit for the light environment in the class too. When she was about to tell them what will be on the upcoming test she said, "For those of you that are sleepy, you can take a nap now." And when she was done she said, "Okay it's time to wake up!"
Going to miss this crazy wild class. I hope they can remain lively like this forever.
For most kids, when they first enter junior high they're very lively and act like they're still in elementary school. But the workload soon overwhelms them and you can see the lack on interest for anything once the second semester starts. Not for this school's second grader though. Yes they're more well behave, but they're still as silly and goofy as ever. In and out of class.
The kids found my weak spot of being poke/ticklish at around the waist. Sometimes we'll go into this poking game before class starts. Though I always lose cause they gang up on me. Today Chi-san holding my hands while she tried to get No-san to gang up on me. But alas, No-san wasn't in the mood today. Chi-san didn't give up though, and kept holding on to my hands and trying to pull me back to the class. At which point I told her "You're going to fall!" She didn't get what I was saying, so I loosen my grip and let her fall back a little. "See! You're going to fall" I said again. She still didn't get it. So she got the JTE to come over to translate. The JTE got what I said right away, but told Chi-san to try figure it out herself. She did eventually get it (with help from others) and let go.
On to Bingo. I read out the words in which ever order I want, and the kids have started to hint at what words they need to get a Bingo (the prize are stickers). I know the JTE doesn't mind me following through with their requests, but I try not to do it too often. Usually the kids will say "Pick one that starts with 'A'!" or something along the line in Japanese. Today though, Da-kun took it a step further and said in English "Repeat after me, 'Carlo'." Got to give him credit for pulling out all the stops like that, so I smiled and said 'Carlo'.
Last part of the class involved learning a dialog involving taking the correct bus to a given destination. For some reason, the book decide to use "City Hall" as the destination but "Shiyakusho-mae" as the bus stop. I failed to say the "sho" part correctly twice, and kept mispronouncing it as "show". The whole class erupted in laughter. Da-kun pulled the "Repeat after me" phrase again to try and correct me. Ru-san started cracking up whenever I walked by her desk after that.
Of course, the JTE deserves credit for the light environment in the class too. When she was about to tell them what will be on the upcoming test she said, "For those of you that are sleepy, you can take a nap now." And when she was done she said, "Okay it's time to wake up!"
Going to miss this crazy wild class. I hope they can remain lively like this forever.