America, F* Yeah!
Well I'll be leaving tomorrow (Japan time) for America, and I'm very excited~
I've been soooo busy the past couple of weeks because even though school is out, all my private lessons are still on. In fact, most of the people decided that, even though I'll be gone for most of August, they want to get their 4 lessons (usually 1 per week) in while I'm still here. ^^; The fact that I don't have regular school just means the lessons can start that much earlier in the day.
One particular client is always extremely keen to get in as much education for their kids as humanly possible, but I firmly believe there's a point at which that zeal actually negatively affects the kids.
This year I have a couple of students who are young kids (7 to 9) and also practically fluent in English. One girl and her mother lived in California for several years, and I believe she's in the "immersion" program at a local school. Her mother's also really good at English (I believe she worked as an interpreter in the US), and our lessons are lightly structured vocabulary practice. She's very sweet and can concentrate really well, but sometimes I wonder about her English ability. (She's asked me things that are direct translations from Japanese before, like "How many centimeters do you have?" Instead of How tall are you?
Anyway, one of my more problematic clients is actually a 9 year-old boy and his 7 year-old sister. They are probably the best speakers of English I encounter during my week, and the way they interact reminds me of how me and my siblings used to: they tend to bicker. But the problem has to do with their parents, who won't let them do ANYTHING! During our lessons, we're supposed to read from the Encyclopedia for Kids. And nothing else, I guess. Their parents tend to come in and yell at them if they start to argue, or if they hear them saying anything off-topic.
Our lessons are 3 times a week, for an hour each time, and I regard them as a kind of babysitting. I know it's hard for kids that young to concentrate on one thing for a long time like that, so I usually try to think of fun things for us to do, like origami, drawing, or reading some other books aloud. Especially this past week, when his parents (because it's summer vacation) extended the lessons to an hour and 40 minutes ... every day.
Before we even started the long lessons, I asked the kids to try to think of things we could do for an hour and a half (during which, by the way, we're stuck in this one tiny room with a low table and the encyclopedias and not much else). I asked if we could play a board game or read a book together or something, but they said their parents would definitely not allow board games. So I suggested we read Holes, which they said they had. But that day, it wasn't in the room. I asked the boy to just go get it from the other room, but he said his mother (who was in there) was in a bad mood that day, and it wouldn't be a good idea to disturb her, much less let her know we were using the book in the lesson. >__> So I told them to investigate and maybe bring the book into the room in time for the nest lesson.
Come to find out, his father has cut up the book, scanned all the pages and put them into the Kindle he bought a while ago. The Kindle which the kids can't use during the lesson. So I actually had to go buy a new copy of the book so we could read it when we got bored every day.
A few other facts about these kids: the girl is pretty much your average girl, likes girly things, does gymnastics, and loves books. She was probably the most excited to read the book together. She'd always ask "Why did he do that?" or ask to read it the next day. I was grateful for that.
The boy is some kind of science genius. He knows tons about science in both English and Japanese and he recently got the number one score in his age group in the prefecture on some science test. He knows more than me. But he can't go one day without talking about Mario! And by Mario, I mean the New Super Mario Brothers for Wii. He is the most obsessed person I have ever seen. The scary thing is, they don't even have the game! He doesn't have any video games (except some weird 7-in-one math game handheld thing) because he's not allowed to play them. He's also not allowed to collect Pokemon cards or anything, unlike pretty much every other kid in Japan. To compensate, he and his older brother (11) have started making their own cards out of drawing paper. I just feel sorry for them. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of 逆効果.
Anyway, I'll be really glad to get a bit of a rest maybe, although I have a lot I need to buy. I'm also starting to realize I forgot a lot of things back at my house in Numazu ... and I'm already in Yokohama. ^^; I hope it'll still be okay ... I've got everything I need to get back into the country, and my credit card ... it'll have to be enough.
My flight tomorrow is at 4pm ... wonder what time I should get to the airport? :/
I've been soooo busy the past couple of weeks because even though school is out, all my private lessons are still on. In fact, most of the people decided that, even though I'll be gone for most of August, they want to get their 4 lessons (usually 1 per week) in while I'm still here. ^^; The fact that I don't have regular school just means the lessons can start that much earlier in the day.
One particular client is always extremely keen to get in as much education for their kids as humanly possible, but I firmly believe there's a point at which that zeal actually negatively affects the kids.
This year I have a couple of students who are young kids (7 to 9) and also practically fluent in English. One girl and her mother lived in California for several years, and I believe she's in the "immersion" program at a local school. Her mother's also really good at English (I believe she worked as an interpreter in the US), and our lessons are lightly structured vocabulary practice. She's very sweet and can concentrate really well, but sometimes I wonder about her English ability. (She's asked me things that are direct translations from Japanese before, like "How many centimeters do you have?" Instead of How tall are you?
Anyway, one of my more problematic clients is actually a 9 year-old boy and his 7 year-old sister. They are probably the best speakers of English I encounter during my week, and the way they interact reminds me of how me and my siblings used to: they tend to bicker. But the problem has to do with their parents, who won't let them do ANYTHING! During our lessons, we're supposed to read from the Encyclopedia for Kids. And nothing else, I guess. Their parents tend to come in and yell at them if they start to argue, or if they hear them saying anything off-topic.
Our lessons are 3 times a week, for an hour each time, and I regard them as a kind of babysitting. I know it's hard for kids that young to concentrate on one thing for a long time like that, so I usually try to think of fun things for us to do, like origami, drawing, or reading some other books aloud. Especially this past week, when his parents (because it's summer vacation) extended the lessons to an hour and 40 minutes ... every day.
Before we even started the long lessons, I asked the kids to try to think of things we could do for an hour and a half (during which, by the way, we're stuck in this one tiny room with a low table and the encyclopedias and not much else). I asked if we could play a board game or read a book together or something, but they said their parents would definitely not allow board games. So I suggested we read Holes, which they said they had. But that day, it wasn't in the room. I asked the boy to just go get it from the other room, but he said his mother (who was in there) was in a bad mood that day, and it wouldn't be a good idea to disturb her, much less let her know we were using the book in the lesson. >__> So I told them to investigate and maybe bring the book into the room in time for the nest lesson.
Come to find out, his father has cut up the book, scanned all the pages and put them into the Kindle he bought a while ago. The Kindle which the kids can't use during the lesson. So I actually had to go buy a new copy of the book so we could read it when we got bored every day.
A few other facts about these kids: the girl is pretty much your average girl, likes girly things, does gymnastics, and loves books. She was probably the most excited to read the book together. She'd always ask "Why did he do that?" or ask to read it the next day. I was grateful for that.
The boy is some kind of science genius. He knows tons about science in both English and Japanese and he recently got the number one score in his age group in the prefecture on some science test. He knows more than me. But he can't go one day without talking about Mario! And by Mario, I mean the New Super Mario Brothers for Wii. He is the most obsessed person I have ever seen. The scary thing is, they don't even have the game! He doesn't have any video games (except some weird 7-in-one math game handheld thing) because he's not allowed to play them. He's also not allowed to collect Pokemon cards or anything, unlike pretty much every other kid in Japan. To compensate, he and his older brother (11) have started making their own cards out of drawing paper. I just feel sorry for them. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of 逆効果.
Anyway, I'll be really glad to get a bit of a rest maybe, although I have a lot I need to buy. I'm also starting to realize I forgot a lot of things back at my house in Numazu ... and I'm already in Yokohama. ^^; I hope it'll still be okay ... I've got everything I need to get back into the country, and my credit card ... it'll have to be enough.
My flight tomorrow is at 4pm ... wonder what time I should get to the airport? :/