Day 25: More English

Today was an early morning for me, finalizing the activities for my classes today. I am not sure why, but all of the teachers and I had a morning meeting today. Mr. Yukita was not there to translate for me, but I knew some of what was going on. Perhaps the most notable part of the meeting was the presentation of gifts for Ayata Sensei, who is Junpei's home room teacher. Ayata Sensei's wife gave birth to their first child this week, a baby girl! He is a really nice guy and it is easy to see the joy in his eyes lately; I am happy for him.

My classes with the fourth graders today were a lot of fun, and the activities I planned seemed to be very effective. In the morning, I was in R12 and R13. I reviewed the -teen and -ty numbers with the students, and then Chuck had them practice counting numbers all the way to 100. Chuck had the students play bingo with the numbers, and then it was my turn to take over again. I practiced time again with the students, and created a fun game using time. First we reviewed the class schedule and I asked, "What do you do at nine o'clock?" The students replied, "I study math at nine o'clock." The game I created was essentially a race: two students were each give a paper hour hand and then I would say a phrase like, "I study Japanese at eleven o'clock." The first student to correctly place the hour hand, on the large clocks I drew on the chalkboard, earned a point for their row. The students seem to love the game, and it really forced them to think about time. The other great thing about the game is that we adapted it towards the end of class to introduce new material. One of the curriculum goals for this month is to teach past tense phrases. Therefore, we introduced past tense in the same game format: "I studied English at eight o'clock." Next week I will teach the kids more about simple past tense phrases.

My classes today went really well, but there were some challenges throughout the day too. First of all, I had to help one girl during Chuck's bingo game, because she doesn't have a good grasp on numbers in English. Chuck just kept going with the activity, but that is really all he could do. The English program at Notre Dame is very good, but it is still not treated as a core subject. In other words, the students take English classes to absorb what they can from them. As a result, the students' ability levels vary greatly within each class. Another challenge arose at the beginning of my fourth class of the day: a fight between students! I was shocked to see a fight break out right in the classroom. Chuck and I separated the two children and then Chuck took them outside to cool off while I started the lesson. All it took was some time for the students to cool off. If the other students are allowed to take part in such situations, then they only continue to escalate. Within a few minutes the students were back in the class and ready to learn.

Teaching on a regular basis now feels very good. It is nice to have at least a somewhat regular schedule from day to day. Today I saw several similarities between teaching here and teaching in the United States. In particular, adjustments and adaptations can always be made when teaching lessons. After trying a lesson for the first time, it becomes clear to a good teacher what small changes will make the lesson better. Time management is one of the clearest examples of things that teachers can improve on within a lesson. It is difficult to plan exactly how long an activity will take the students, but after one trial the teacher can have a better sense of the time requirement.