Sleepy...Sleepy...Sleepy
I really would like a nap. I have had a busy two days! Yesterday I joined in the Sports Festival Practice. The students practiced all day in 80+ heat and bright sun and they loved it. They had a wonderful time practicing their class activities, cheering, and dance routines. I had a wonderful time watching them.
I found out a bunch of interesting things yesterday. One thing is that my school lets the male students and teacher practice during the day shirtless outside and that some of my teachers will run into the teacher’s room with bare feet (of course they do rinse them off before entering). Now this is not normal practice from what I understand but I got over after about three seconds.
I also learned that one of the third year teachers, who speaks to me in English and has me translate some things into better English for his class, he told me that the reason he can speak a little English is because he lived in Ghana for three years. He was in something like the Peace Corps. The only people who lived in the village were him, the American Peace Corps workers, and the Ghana villagers. From this he picked up English and he also practice with Iikura Sensei every once and a while. It takes him a while to speak, it is very slow but for the most part he has amazing sentence structure and his grammar is good too.
Oh, last night I met the new Ami ALT, Chris. He is 24 years old and from Tampa, Florida; he has been in Japan for a year and a half. I met him at his apartment last night and then we went out for Ramen. He took me to a game arcade and taught me how to play this game that has you play a guitar and/or drums. It was pretty cool. After that we just hung out and talked. I think Chris and I are going to get along really well. I think we are going to try to get the three Ami ALTs out for a night of Karaoke in the near future.
Today I only watched practice until lunch and then I went back to the teacher’s room to work on some of my elementary school stuff. I have decided I am going to try to teach my third and fourth graders some pronouns and a more complex sentence using like. So instead of it being “I like strawberries.” It will end up being “He likes strawberries.” Then I want work on the question “Does he like strawberries?’. I found some good flashcards for this so I am now just trying to think of a game to go with it.
After I finish up at Takaku Chu, I need to go to interTalk where I am teaching three classes tonight. I think I am going to end up doing testing with my three boys to figure out how much English they know to see if they are in the right class. I finish teaching tonight at nine and then Jana and I are going out for food. We haven’t hung out in a couple of days so I am looking forward to that. I really should have a cup of coffee...just so I can have a bit of a wake up jolt.
Tomorrow, I am Ami Daiichi Sho (elementary school) and I am going to be teaching four classes there. Second period is going to be Sports Festival practice and I have been invited to join the students during that and also for the practice during recess.
I am just looking at the up coming couple of days and I am really looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday.