teaching: day 2
i woke up SO incredibly tired this morning.... i didn't make it to bed early last night like i had hopped. u_u' but i will try again tonight...! but i still need to finalize a lesson plan for tomorrow... i'm so not use to planning lessons.
today i taught two 2nd year classes, using the same self-intro lesson i used for the other classes yesterday... like the 2nd year class yesterday, both of these classes did not want to participate in anything until bribed. it must be something to do with puberty... man, even though i'm not the one going through it, it's obviously still going to be a pain in the ass for me to deal with. the students are so self conscious that they wont answer a question even if they know the answer. they wont say anything even if they really do have something to say.
are american students just the opposite....? i seem to remember kids being even more rowdy (not in a positive way) once they hit puberty?
anyway, my end of the lesson went fine, there was no cooperation on their part. i am now firmly of the opinion that teenagers suck and the younger the students the better. i've heard this from experienced ALTs, but i'm even more of a believer now. :p i think i would have DIED trying to teach high schoolers... high school is a whole 'nother monster period. i haven't even taught a 3rd year class yet.... i wonder if they could possibly be worse than the 2nd years.
english club today went really well. did i mention english club is comprised completely of 1st year students? yes. the puberty students can't be bothered with english club. the innocent 1st years have yet to be tainted. :cough: ...i managed to find a site (http://dltk-cards.com) that lets you make custom bingo cards.... so i printed some out with pictures of articles of clothing on it (something they have yet to learn). first i taught the words used in the game, then we played a few rounds. after that, i had them turn over the paper and make new bingo cards using other clothing vocab that i randomly thought of. all of that in itself took up almost an hour, but apparently there is extra time for clubs on wednesdays, so i did another activity.
this time i taught them how to make origami fortunetellers. this activity really got them talking. sadly, all the talking was in japanese. none of them will speak english in english club aside from 'thank you, see you later'. the president of the club knows a decent amount of english. infact, she often ends up telling the other students what i say if i cant say it in japanese, but she absolutely refuses to speak english. i haven't heard a word of english from her, even though she understands everything i say. if i say something to her in english, she responds to me in japanese as if i'm a native speaker. sometimes i can't understand her at all because she talks so fast and sometimes uses the local dialect of japanese instead of the standard.
i'm sure i'll end up never hearing a word of english from her outside of speech contests, no matter how hard i try.
but my accomplishment of the day is that i was successful in getting them to do everything i wanted them to do! using a mixture of demonstration, english, pictures and broken japanese i was able to convey everything i needed to without the help of anyone else. again, they weren't helpful when i attempted to get feedback from them on how my japanese was. i'd ask them if they understood what i said, and they'd just stare for a bit, whisper to the person next to them and then start doing what i had asked them to do. i guess that's how they show that they understood. >_>; but despite all that, i think they are warming up to me a little more now... if i went up to them personally they'd atleast answer me in some kind of way.
tomorrow i have to teach two 6th year classes at an elementary school. the topic being food. friday i have to teach two 3rd year classes at a different elementary school, the topic being body parts. when i got off work today i went to a 100yen ($1) store in search of props i could use... i couldn't find anything decent for the lesson on body parts, but i found plastic fruits and veggies (the ones ment to be used for decor). hopefully they'll go over well for the lesson tomorrow... this will be my first time at an elementary school, but i have a feeling that the 6th grade class will have a bad case of "seniorities"/preteen puberty and will make things hard on me. >_>; and i've heard very mixed things about elementary school JTEs... i will probably be in complete charge of the class with little to no help from the JTE whom i haven't even met, so i need to have a good solid hour worth of food activities down... hopefully she will at least translate for me. no idea what i'll do friday.
but anyway, i need to get offline and plan the lesson so i can get to bed at a decent time.... scary preteen elementary students. i've heard so many bad things about 6th year students.
today i taught two 2nd year classes, using the same self-intro lesson i used for the other classes yesterday... like the 2nd year class yesterday, both of these classes did not want to participate in anything until bribed. it must be something to do with puberty... man, even though i'm not the one going through it, it's obviously still going to be a pain in the ass for me to deal with. the students are so self conscious that they wont answer a question even if they know the answer. they wont say anything even if they really do have something to say.
are american students just the opposite....? i seem to remember kids being even more rowdy (not in a positive way) once they hit puberty?
anyway, my end of the lesson went fine, there was no cooperation on their part. i am now firmly of the opinion that teenagers suck and the younger the students the better. i've heard this from experienced ALTs, but i'm even more of a believer now. :p i think i would have DIED trying to teach high schoolers... high school is a whole 'nother monster period. i haven't even taught a 3rd year class yet.... i wonder if they could possibly be worse than the 2nd years.
english club today went really well. did i mention english club is comprised completely of 1st year students? yes. the puberty students can't be bothered with english club. the innocent 1st years have yet to be tainted. :cough: ...i managed to find a site (http://dltk-cards.com) that lets you make custom bingo cards.... so i printed some out with pictures of articles of clothing on it (something they have yet to learn). first i taught the words used in the game, then we played a few rounds. after that, i had them turn over the paper and make new bingo cards using other clothing vocab that i randomly thought of. all of that in itself took up almost an hour, but apparently there is extra time for clubs on wednesdays, so i did another activity.
this time i taught them how to make origami fortunetellers. this activity really got them talking. sadly, all the talking was in japanese. none of them will speak english in english club aside from 'thank you, see you later'. the president of the club knows a decent amount of english. infact, she often ends up telling the other students what i say if i cant say it in japanese, but she absolutely refuses to speak english. i haven't heard a word of english from her, even though she understands everything i say. if i say something to her in english, she responds to me in japanese as if i'm a native speaker. sometimes i can't understand her at all because she talks so fast and sometimes uses the local dialect of japanese instead of the standard.
i'm sure i'll end up never hearing a word of english from her outside of speech contests, no matter how hard i try.
but my accomplishment of the day is that i was successful in getting them to do everything i wanted them to do! using a mixture of demonstration, english, pictures and broken japanese i was able to convey everything i needed to without the help of anyone else. again, they weren't helpful when i attempted to get feedback from them on how my japanese was. i'd ask them if they understood what i said, and they'd just stare for a bit, whisper to the person next to them and then start doing what i had asked them to do. i guess that's how they show that they understood. >_>; but despite all that, i think they are warming up to me a little more now... if i went up to them personally they'd atleast answer me in some kind of way.
tomorrow i have to teach two 6th year classes at an elementary school. the topic being food. friday i have to teach two 3rd year classes at a different elementary school, the topic being body parts. when i got off work today i went to a 100yen ($1) store in search of props i could use... i couldn't find anything decent for the lesson on body parts, but i found plastic fruits and veggies (the ones ment to be used for decor). hopefully they'll go over well for the lesson tomorrow... this will be my first time at an elementary school, but i have a feeling that the 6th grade class will have a bad case of "seniorities"/preteen puberty and will make things hard on me. >_>; and i've heard very mixed things about elementary school JTEs... i will probably be in complete charge of the class with little to no help from the JTE whom i haven't even met, so i need to have a good solid hour worth of food activities down... hopefully she will at least translate for me. no idea what i'll do friday.
but anyway, i need to get offline and plan the lesson so i can get to bed at a decent time.... scary preteen elementary students. i've heard so many bad things about 6th year students.