I arrived a bit early at the ES, as the ceremony started at 9:00 am. I used this chance to give kocho-sensei a gift for the school, which was several books in English. There is a famous Canadian author from my city ( Robert Munsch), and I included two of his books.
I sat in my desk until the ceremony began, watching the kids walk past the teacher's room to the gym. Some of them stared, some waved, and one stopped dead in her tracks with a look of shock and awe. I also met a lady from the town office, who was there to take notes and photos for a column in the town newsletter!
After all the students had entered the gym, I came in and stood at the back. Kocho-sensei did an opening type of speech first, which also included a lecture about greetings. He even had a graph for all the kids! I have no idea how one makes a graph about greetings, but I guess this is serious business. After his speech, there was another speech introducing me. At one point he told them all to look where I was standing or something, because all of a sudden the faces of 200 kids were glued to where I was and the little first graders at the back were all leaping in the air trying to get a look at me. Then Kyoto-sensei showed me to the stage, and then it was time for my self introduction! I basically said the same thing as at the JHS. I exited the stage and stood with the other teachers.
Next up was an awards ceremony for swimming. I was standing beside the first graders, and one little boy caught my eye as he fidgeted with his shirt and nametag and kept whining about how hot it was. I feel ya, kid. There was also a huge dragonfly circulating the gym, which caused a lot of the kids to lose attention. After that was a review of the importance of greetings and several other things. The teacher who lead this did so by holding up the written hiragana which was the first letter of the word (ex. A for aisatsu, greetings). At one point he held up mi, and one little boy excitedly shouted, 'MISO!'
At the end of the ceremony, I went back to the staff room and had a very awkward interview with the lady from the newsletter. I felt bad for her, she had no idea how to translate what she wanted to ask me. We were a little late, so Kyoto-sensei called the JHS to let them know and the newsletter lady walked me over there.
I WAS Supposed to Have a Lesson first period with Handicapped students, but I missed That Being at ES. So My first Lesson WAS at half past one pm with 2 nd Graders (Grade 8). the When I got to School I did some planning with Lesson the JTE for that class, which helped me feel a little more secure.
At 11:20 am, N-san came by the staff room. She held out a folder to me with some sticky notes on it, which started 'Anje, Thank you for your BIG help!' I was confused, like, what did I to help whom? Anyway, I read a little further and I guess someone wanted me to help translate and proofread some information on Chizu! I'm actually pretty excited, to think that I can help with something like that. She also had me fill out some information and stamp my personal seal on some documents for health insurance. For some reason Justin had been named as the family provider instead of me ?! Anyway, the paperwork was to show that Justin and Yana are my dependents.
Around 12:45 I went to the kitchen to eat lunch with Kyoto-sensei. Today was rice, milk, chikuwa and bamboo salad thing, fried fish with tonkatsu sauce, and tofu and wakame soup. The fish was actually alright! I was' Thrilled with the t Shikuwa or Soup Though, so I WAS glad WHEN Kyoto-Sensei HAD to leave Quickly. But then the Office Ladies Came in to Eat with me! They're all really Understanding, Though. I feel bad! Oh, I also had to pay for my school lunch today! It is Y315 a day! I kinda dislike the lunches, but its so freaking cheap. Its almost worth it anyway, because the rice is always good and I can take the milk home for Yana or for cooking.
After lunch, at 1:30 pm was my first class! I was a bit nervous, but actually not that much because it was mostly just a self-introduction class rather than actually teaching. J-sensei came to pick me up from the teacher's room and we ran to class together (ran because we were late!). Our lesson plan was to do greetings, have me to a brief verbal self-introduction, give the students a quiz about me and have them guess the answers. I was amused to see one student use a pencil to answer the multiple choice questions - she has carved away the end and written A, B, C, D on each side and would roll the pencil to get a random answer.
Then I did a powerpoint presentation about myself and also included the answers to the quiz. In one slide I had a collage of me with Canadian things ... one boy thought the beaver was a capybara! After the presentation, J-sensei went over the answers again. Lastly, we had each student do a short self introduction. They had to say their name, what they liked, and what they play. One student said, 'I like keshigomi (eraser).' I could not stop laughing ! The class (2-1) is really energetic and silly, but they're a bit shy when it comes to English. They all speak very loudly in Japanese and so quietly in English that I had to stand at each person's desk to hear them speak. They seemed happy enough with the class though, so I feel okay about that!
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