Bonding with Students and Teachers!
Today has set a record for interactions with teachers who do not teach English. I just bonded with Nomura Sensei (third year Japanese teacher) over her cat. She saw that my calendar on my desk had a picture of cat and she told me that she had a cat. She said she had a picture and asked if I would like to see it. I said sure.
Oh, the cat is so cute! It is an American short hair and his name is Rui. Nomura Sensei was so happy when I said her cat was cute. Her face lights up when she smiles. We made a bit of a scene in the teacher’s room talking about how cute her cat was. I told her I would bring a picture of my brother’s cat Pumpkin on Monday so she could see it.
I like Nomura Sensei. We do not talk much but if she seems in the hallway she always gives me a huge smile and if I am working she will sometimes stop by my desk to see what I am working on. She is a breath of fresh air and never fails to make me smile.
I was very nervous about eating lunch with the イキイキ (special education) students. I had no idea if they would talk with me and I was worried that if they did it would be in Japanese that I couldn’t understand. Turns out there was no need to worry. I had one of the best lunches ever.
The イキイキ class is small; there are only five students in the class. Yamaguchi Sensei is the イキイキ homeroom teacher and I found out that he speaks a little English. If the students and I were having problems speaking then he did his best to help us through them. He also joined in the conversation and that was wonderful.
I mainly talked with one of the second year students who is from the Philippians and has a love of American movies. We talked about Spiderman, Pirates, Mission Impossible, Titanic, and Forest Gump. Yamaguchi Sensei told me that he liked non-fiction movies like Titanic and Forest Gump (it dealt with history). One of the other boys jumped in when we started talking about anime. ‘Movie lover’ (the student from the Philippians) showed no fear when it came to talking to me. He used a couple of words in English but for he most part just asked me if I had seen movies by stating the title and then by using the names of the characters/actors in the movie.
After lunch, ‘movie lover’ and I watched a trailer for Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on the classroom computer. Yamaguchi Sensei was wonderful and volunteered to clean up so we could watch the trailers together. I think this is the first student with whom I have ‘bonded’ with at Asahi Chu!