Akasaka-em-Robots
...written on 2000-10-31, @ 23:18:29
Tues Oct 31, 2000
I have been here a little over a month and haven't taught the same class twice yet. I have anywhere from one to 4 classes a day.
Today I went to a branch I had never been to before, Akasaka. I was to teach 4 classes, two of 7th graders and two of 8th graders. Each class was different in its participation and ability. In two classes I taught about comparatives, and the other two got the contractions and possessives. These classes were to be a mixture of "English is Fun" and "Grammar Study". I had the grammar stuff ready, now how to make it fun. Sometimes I surf the web for ideas, sometimes I find things around the office and sometimes when I am in the middle of a class I will get an inspiration. Such was the case today in the contraction class. Up to the start of the Grammar Study portion, the students had been quiet, seemingly impervious to all of my mugging and joking, and I was thinking, "Man, I got 15 minutes to go." Finally I wrote "I am", "you are" and "he is" on the board. I had them say the word "contraction", knowing full well that they couldn't remember that, and I outstretched my arms and brought them in slowly while I sucked in my cheeks. "Contraction means to make smaller," I said. I then turned to the blackboard waved my arms, made some magic noises and then let out the biggest karate chop noise I could, whacked the "I am" and then wrote "I'm" next to it. When I turned around to face the class, I was blinded by the lightbulbs going off over their heads. I had 30 minutes to teach them and it would have been worth 29 minutes and 45 seconds just to see that 15 second explosion of comprehension. It was beautiful! So to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I karate chopped "you are" and had them say "you're". Then I had one of the boys come up and karate chop "he is" and we took it to "he's". I also did "it's" and any time later on in the lesson, I would write "it is" on purpose and let them belt out a karate cry to change it to "it's". Whew. Mission accomplished.
After the classes were over I went to the office to rest. I haven't been feeling the greatest and I expend a lot of energy when I teach, so I was feeling kind of whooped. Many students from my classes came up to me and asked me to sign their "reward cards". This is a card where students keep track of doing a good job in class by receiving little stickers or having the teacher "make their stamp" on their cards. I put my fancy initial in 4 squares on each card that was given to me to sign. I felt honored to be asked to participate in this little school ritual. My school gives out stickers instead of food, candy etc. to avoid problems.
I struck up a conversation with a handsome 14 year old boy as I was thinking, if he could only put on 30 years he would make me a great birthday present. I told him it was my birthday tomorrow and he said "Happy Birthday" in English! What a cutie pie!
Fred and I went back to Homebu (really they spell it "hombu", but I like it my way better, and it's my diary after all , isn't it?) and then he took me home. So it's 10 minutes until my birthday and I am off to write another entry.