Day 12: Family Lesson

I woke up earlier than usual today for two reasons: my commute from the Nagasaku's House is about one hour by train, and I needed to make the final preparations for my lesson today. For breakfast we had eggs, juice, toast, and American cherries. Mrs. Nagasaku and I took the JR train to Kyoto Station, and then a taxi to Notre Dame Elementary. Each Wednesday and Friday the teachers have a morning meeting before first period. Mr. Yukita usually summarizes the main points for me in English so I know what the meeting was about.

Shimizu Sensei let me take over her third grade class for the entire first period of the day! The goal of the lesson was to teach the students about my family, their ages, and the state of Wisconsin while giving the students opportunities to practice their English speaking. I set up the video camera overhead projector on the teacher's desk and pulled down the class map of the world. The first question I asked was, "what country am I from?" It was an easy question to start, but then I asked for a volunteer to find the state of Wisconsin. The young man had some trouble, but with a few hints he found Wisconsin. I shared a picture of a farm near my house in Stoughton, Wisconsin. The students were intrigued at the unfamiliar landscape in the picture. We then moved on to my family photos. I introduced my family members in Japanese and then had the students guess their ages. Then I shared my hobbies and interests with phrases the students are learning in English class: "I like to play football. I like to play ice hockey. I like to play guitar." I shared pictures of my dog and then the students asked questions. One of the questions asked was how old I am. I usually joke with the kids when they ask me this question by saying I am "san byaku sai desu" (three hundred years old). Eventually the students guessed my age correctly. The lesson was fun, interactive, and the students got some good practice with their English.

I ate lunch with Junpei today, and I am curious how he will react when I can not eat with him anymore. Over the lunch period I also met with Mr. Yukita, who is one of the teachers taking the students to America is a couple of weeks. Mr. Yukita wanted me to make any necessary changes to the brochure for the Discovery Program. I made a couple minor changes and he was grateful for my help. I was happy just to be able to improve the brochure and help him out. This afternoon I observed some classes and also caught up with emails and blog work. After school the teachers had a CPR class in the gym. It was quite boring for me though.

Mrs. Nagasaku took me to a noodle shop near the Heian Shrine. We went to the Heian Shrine after our meal to see the Tagaki Noh traditional Japanese play which I received tickets to as a gift from a student's father. The Shrine itself was quite large, and they had set up the Noh stage in the open courtyard of the Shrine. There were a lot of foreigners there, so I got to meet several Americans. The plays were really spectacular. It was hard to tell when the actors were moving because they moved with such smooth motions. Before I knew it the actors had moved to the other side of the stage. I couldn't understand the dialogue of the play, but it was still neat to watch. The flute that one of the musicians was playing nearly put me to sleep a few times, but I enjoyed the show overall. The best was the skit with a character who could throw spider webs. I do not know what they were throwing, but it really looked like he was throwing webs. By the end of the last play there were webs hanging from everything on the stage and the actors cut through them with swords.