Marunouchi
...written on 2000-10-19, @ 00:30:01
Wed October 18, 2000
Did she do it? Did she manage to reach her snooze goal?
Last night I went to bed with the "Delta Blinders" on, hoping to keep the daylight out of my eyes to allow myself to sleep longer. Well, I woke up at 7:30 am with the blindfold around my ankle. Must have been doing kundalini yoga in my sleep. But guess what! I went back to sleep and slept until 9:30! Yippeeeeeee!
As some of you know, my shift is from 2-10pm, so getting up later is advisable to help me last through the rigors of teaching English.
Well let me tell you, tonight's three classes went very well. I had two students in the first class (both 10 year old girls). I introduced myself, showed them my picture albums and took them through some of the material in their book. The next class I had 7 students, 2 boys and 5 girls. I gave them the "getting to know you" questions which we read outloud and then we went over "he likes, she does, and it doesn't" kind of stuff. This class was a quiet one. The next class of 21 students was a humdinger. . .
I could hear the teacher introducing me from inside (I was waiting until they had finished a test) and stepped in when my name was announced. As I walked in, the students clapped robustly. It was great! Nearly a standing ovation with just a walk-on non-speaking part. I said my name and had them say theirs and ask the person next to them what their name was. We went though the "getting to know you" questions, but this class did it with gusto! Loud, clear confident voices rang out and I just ate it up. They even volunteered when I asked them some of the questions. After that exercise I reviewed some basic info like colors, pets, sports, hobbies, food and then I taught them the third person singular verb form (he, she, it). I did this with flashcards. We focused on to do, to be, to have, to like, and does and doesn't. They were so smart! And funny too. One time for fun I said a word with a very unnatural lilting inflection that they didn't copy, they just said the word straight. I told them jokingly that they had said it wrong, repeated the lilt and went on with the word list. The next time I said a word for a Japanese food with a lilt, (imagine the Ricolah commericial) they all repeated it exactly like I said it and then everyone laughed. It was good to see them having fun with English.
I must admit to a scary thing though. As we were practicing "he and she", I had to point to some students and guess at their gender. This was a class of 13 year olds and aside from being upon the cusp of puberty, they dressed rather androgenously. I did ok though.
As the evening ended, I thanked Okumura-san for the good experience and for the souvenir he got for me at the Basho museum. Basho was a famous haiku poet who took off on a journey with his servant and a friend from Tokyo, curved northward a good ways and came down and ended the trail in Ogaki. Okumura-san bought me a little rice paper parasol (too big for a mai-tai).
Ok, it is 12:35 am, I know it's still early, but lord, I am sooooooo tired, I think it's time to get ready for the futon!
Oyasumi,
Kim