I had another rehearsal for the musical last weekend. Things are coming together quite nicely I think. We practiced a lot of the songs and the dances, and I shamelessly choreographed some easy steps for 1 of the songs I'm doing with the 2 genies, 'Share the World' by Touhoushinki (東方神起）. The song was my choice. Don't shoot me for liking Korean boybands, they are pretty, after all And for all you Anime fans out there, "YAY, 'ONE PIECE' OPENING SONG!"
I wasn't too well during the end of last week; I had a horrible tummy bug. I went into 1 of the schools on Thursday (called 'Meitoku') but the kind teachers there told me to go home and rest - the Deputy Headteacher even drove me back in his car, bless him! I was feeling better on Friday, so I went back to the school to teach the remainder of my classes.
A little note about this school 'Meitoku'; it's an Elementary school (Ages 6 to 11, equivalent to an English Primary school) and a Junior High school (Ages 11 to 15, equivalent to an English secondary school) together. It's the smallest school I go to, in that because there are so little numbers of students, the grades/years in the Elementary schools are taught together i.e. 1st & 2nd grades together, 3rd & 4th grades together and 5th & 6th grades together (For example, there is only 1 student in the 1st grade, and 3 students in the 2nd grade!) There are also only 2 students in the 1st grade of Junior High (kinda like Year 7), 3 students in the 2nd grade of Junior High (Year 8ish) and 6 students in the 3rd grade of Junior High (Year 9ish). I go to the school about 3 times a month, usually on Thursdays and Fridays.
Now, for the other 3 schools I go to, I am literally an assistant - this means that the Japanese English teacher has the lesson all planned out, and I simply assist by helping with pronunciations or creating an activity for them to do and so forth. But here at Meitoku, they ask me to plan the whole lesson - no plan, no nothing. It's all up to me. At first, not having had any teaching experience, I was overwhelmed, but as the number of students are small and as they are very sweet and well-behaved, I've actually come to enjoy having the freedom of teaching them what I like.
When I teach classes at 'Meitoku' I usually choose a theme and adjust the levels accordingly for each grade. Last week, I chose 'animals'. I enjoy teaching the 3rd grade in Junior High the most, as their level of English is high (especially for such a small school in the depths of Hokkaido), and they give me what I love - a REACTION and EAGERNESS!! They really listen to what I say and put their all in the activities I prepare for them. I try to make the lessons as interesting as possible by download-ur-showing Youtube videos. I was looking for some BBC Animals Documentaries but I realised that the vocabulary would be too advanced for them, but then I came across this...
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