On Friday, I vented about my students stating that they shouldn’t have to learn English because they are Japanese and they live in Japan. Today, the students took those statements a step further and I found that I liked how they changed them.

Today the parents were able to visit the school during fifth period and Tsukune Sensei decided that she ( Read more... )

The third years are working on debating in English. Simple things like “I think that junior high school students should have cell phones” and “I disagree, junior high school students shouldn’t have cell phones”.

Tsukune Sensei gave her students a new statement today. The statement was “we should study English”. The students then had to write down ( Read more... )

Lunch was a blast! I ate with 3-2 and the group that I sat with was great. One of the girls went to Superior over the summer so we talked about the dragon boat races in Japanese and explained what they were to the rest of the table. After that I asked everyone if they had any pets. Then the girl sitting next to started speaking really fast Japanese ( Read more... )

 
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... )

It has been a slow week. Yesterday, the ALTs gathered at Beth and Kevin’s. We watched the last episode of Band of Brothers. (We have the Band of Brothers documentary episode to watch still.) We are trying to figure out what would be a good show/miniseries to start watching on Thursdays.

Tonight there is a meeting at interTalk. From what I hear ( Read more... )

Please give me at least 24 hour notice when you want me to teach a special lesson (even if the lesson is only supposed to take up ten minutes of class). Do not tell me the day I arrive at school that you want me to teach Halloween for the first ten minutes of your class.

Odds are, I won't have materials to teach the lesson with sitting at my desk. ( Read more... )

The very good English speaker at my school (aka Genius) is competing in an English speech competition. This is the first time anyone at the school as competed in this and no one knows what to expect. My forensics and theater background have come in handy because I actually know how to teach someone to give a speech.

The focus of the speech is on ( Read more... )

Today was a boring day at work. The teacher’s were handing back the midterm tests so I did not teach any classes. Even if I was a bit bored, I got some small game cards made for my elementary school visits. I am half way done with the verb cards and the Halloween cards. Now all I need to do is finish laminating them and start on the family cards. ( Read more... )

The new schedule came out today. Asahi Junior Chu took into account that my elementary school days switched from Thursday to Tuesday. On Monday, there are five periods of English. Tuesday (when I am at elementary school), there are two periods of English. Wednesday appears to be my lazy day with only three periods of English. Thursday has four ( Read more... )

School has officially started again. I had to come to work last week but there were no classes because everyone was preparing for the sports festival. Now that the festival is over, classes have started. I taught five periods and the students were exhausted. Getting them to speak was like pulling teeth.

The second years are working on finishing up ( Read more... )