Everyday I'm Shufflin'~

Hurr hurr, I'm back~


So today marked my first day at one of my elementary schools. It's funny how kids always manage to remark that they've confirmed about how I can, indeed, speak English. The kids at my internship school did that too. Dude, it's random foreign white girl- chances are, I'm the English woman~ xD But they're so cute~!


This school is called Nanbu. Honestly, the building's structure is pretty cool. A lot of it has that old hardwood look to it, and actually helps keep the school looking like it's new. I don't have my own desk at this school, so I hang out in the room within the teacher's room, where they keep...stuff. Like a table, chairs, and snacks and coffee/tea. It seems to be a lounge. I spend 1st through 4th hours (mornings) every Tuesday here from now on. I don't teach every hour, so I get there later/leave sooner than that. 


I went around the school during my first hour, greeting random kids and teachers and exploring the whole place. The landscape they did is really nice as well. 2nd hour was my first elementary lesson ever. It was on lesson 2, called "When is your birthday?". This is for the 6th graders, highest in the school. All of the grades have just one classroom except for 2nd grade and 6th grade, which have two this year. Unlike middle and high school, teachers do have their desks in the teachers room, but they stay and remain with their one class, similar to our elementary schools.


So my lesson for the 45 minutes was all about getting them to learn the months in English. First, I did a short self-intro. The kids asked me about things I liked, didn't like, Japan stuff too. My family and pets as well. I started by asking them what months (Japanese) some of their holidays are in. One for each month. With the numbers on the board, I introduced American holidays, one for each, and put flashcards of those on the board too. Also, I then had flashcards for the months in English, though I know they have limited English reading abilities. After some drilling with stupid gestures and dumb voices (you have to keep them as interested as possible!), I discovered my impromptu abilities are pretty good. From here there was a page in the textbook/workbook I had them go over, matching their holidays to the months in English. And then we went over the answers. I also had a game lined up, but here wasn't time for it. There was one student in this class particularly. He had been a straggler coming into the room from break before class, he also seemed to be pretty tall. Crazy. In the beginning, he kept his down, looking at nothing on his desk. He sat near the front so at one point, I snuck up on him, all "Hello" and such. Poor kid was all shy and embarrassed. But he was so adorable! His eyes bugged right out of his head when I brought the American holiday pictures out! It doesn't take too much. ^^


There was a bit of a break between classes, and a bunch of other teachers came to lounge. There were awesome snacks and pickled vegetable things, that one of the teachers grew in his garden, and his wife pickled. He brought them in. It was good. I received tea and coffee too, both were pretty good, actually. Only a couple of the teachers have much English skill. But I got to chat with all of them a little. They saw the cats on my purse, and they discovered about my relation to the teacher who was here before me. Sarah, it turns out, actually went to MSU as well, is from sort of the area I'm from in MI, and did JCMU as well. But she's 1-2 years above me, so it's no surprise I didn't know her before. Main point, these teachers seem real friendly.


The 3rd period was much the same as the 2nd period for me. Main difference being that the first question I got was "Do you have a boyfriend?" which I had expected. xD They also asked about my kanji skills (which I wrote some and they were impressed, hahaaha) and that of course, I know of Lady Gaga. Also, in this class especially, it blew their minds to find out that our school years start in September and end in June. For theirs, they start in April and end in the beginning March, with 3 terms. (Their longest break, summer, is between the 1st and 2nd terms). So we end school shortly after they begin it. Interesting, huh? This one girl's eyes opened sooo wide! xD


It was after this that I went home. I used 4th period to travel to my middle school, since I was slated for nothing at Nanbu, not even "prep". I had lunch with the 3rd years class number 3, as the same this week. The homeroom teacher is also the English head. Today was tofu miso soup, rice, milk, potato salad (a bit different from ours, you can really detect the mayo), and this pork dish. It was like...pork with a red sauce- like marinara with something else- with green peppers, and onions. I told the teacher that the pork dish reminded me of American cooking. He seemed to agree. Since he did, (and his English isn't half-bad), I winder if he was in America or England or somewhere at some point.


Skipping 5th hour, I had a lesson 6th hour with a first year class (7th graders). A couple of the girls from this class had bombarded me in the hall yesterday, being like "you're going home? but we have class!" I assured them it was tomorrow (today). xD


For this class, they were to review "I am ___" and learn new vocabulary- hot, tired, hungry, and thirsty.


I did an awesome warm up game though. I had them all get in a big circle, and I handed out pictures of sushi. There were...33 of them, and I had 15-16 sushi pictures. I put the "Party Rockers Anthem (Everyday I'm Shufflin')" by LMFAO into the CD player. They were to pass the sushi around (like at a rotating sushi place) and when the music stopped, I had the sushi holders say something in English. Anything at all. They really loved it, especially this group of boys kept saying "one more!" But the main sensei had us stop after a while. After which, I had silly flashcards showing the 4 words and I had them learn off of that. Then, sensei took over for her half of class.


But during my worm up thing, some of the kids were cute. The group 4 boys I mentioned before said "crazy kids", a group of three girls did this: Girl 1: I Girl 2: love Girl 3: you
I pretended to be ecstatic and all "of course you do!" at them. xD
Then the boys went like Boy 1: I Boy 2: love Boy 3:cute Boy 4: girls


Also, since they really like word play here, I told the teacher about how we'll use that "I am ___" to tease. Like "Mom, I'm hungry!" "Oh, nice to meet you, hungry!" and such. She did enjoy it. xD Plus, it always feels awesome to understand foreign jokes.


These kids are so adorable. xD So today was pretty cool. Thursday I go to my other elementary school. It should be about the same. Regardless, I did a lot of lesson work yesterday and on the weekend, so from here it's less so for the week.


Anyway, it's time for pasta~