I arrived to school and when I entered the teacher’s room, I was told “CONGRATULATIONS! Good Job! (Student’s name) amazing!” Our school’s top English speaker entered an English speech competition and did an amazing job. He made it to finals out and placed in the top group of 151 students. Aoyama Sensei came over and showed the trophy and medal ( Read more... )

Tomorrow the third year students are going to be taking tests and then during sixth period we are going to have a “stranger drill”. A stranger drill is amusing to watch. One of the teachers will dress up like a ‘dangerous person’ and then wander around the halls. When the students see them they must run away and go some place safe (in this case the ( Read more... )

The third years are taking tests today and I have no idea where year students are. I have not seen any of the second year teachers today and Aoyama Sensei told me that only the first year students had English class today. I will be teaching first and third period: 1-1 and 1-2. I wonder if Tsukune Sensei will let me grade the English tests today.

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Aoyama Sensei greeted me when I got to school today and showed me today’s newspaper. (She was jumping up and down from excitement.) Our student’s FIRST PLACE win, in the English speech competition, made the news (as did the students who got second and third place). I also got a bit of a shout out. Aoyama Sensei said “The school’s ALT has been ( Read more... )

Aoyama Sensei called me a couple of minutes ago and our student placed FIRST in the English speech competition! FIRST PLACE! I was hoping for a third place finish because we had no idea what to expect but FIRST PLACE. Dang, that kid is good.

The sports festival was today and my team (the yellow team) won. While we were jumping up and down cheering, the green team was sobbing because they did not win anything. The third years on the green team looked heartbroken. It is their last big event at the junior high school and they spend the first part of the school and all of their summer ( Read more... )

It is the first day of school but there is no school this week because of Sports Festival practice. The sports festival is Saturday and I am looking forward to it because it is one of my favorite events. I only last fifty minutes outside today before the heat made me head up to the teacher's room to work on my elementary school lesson plans. Ninety ( Read more... )

Jana came over today and I showed her my favorite pictures from my trip to Hokkaido. After that, we watched a couple of dances from So you think you can dance? It is my new favorite TV show. I love Mia’s chorography. The pieces she does are amazing!

While Jana was over Aoyama Sensei called and said that our student made it to the final round at the ( Read more... )

Aoyama Sensei called me today and asked if I would be willing to stop by the school to help our third year student practice for the next level of the English Interactive Forum. I was not busy so I said I would.

Our student has been practicing! We went through the categories of “My Town”, “My Favorite Time”, “My Favorite TV Show”, and “What I would ( Read more... )

The next level of the English Interactive Forum was held on Tuesday and I was impressed with how well all of the students did. The topics for the third year students were hard.

Round 1: My Town

Round 2: Books or movies, doing or watching sports, trips by car or by train, winter or summer, e-mail or letter

Round 3: favorite man or woman, what would ( Read more... )