Friday, September 09, 2005

Teaching

Made it to breakfast this morning. They seemed to be a bit disappointed when I didn't take the miso soup. Everyone here is really nice, though, as they brought out the milk cartons (like at nursery) after I had gone past, and the guy behind me in the queue came over with one for me.

Toast for lunch before heading off with Drummond on the bus to the university. Flick met us in the office, where we were all checking our mail. I replied to an ad on the "Fukuoka Now" forums about part-time English teachers, so we'll see how that turns out.

Teaching! Aaah. We got to Linden Hall school early, and Seb took us on a tour and introduced us to some of the staff. The place is really amazing. It's a new (only 2 years old) English immersion "junior high" school, and each class has two teachers: a native English, and a native Japanese speaker. The whole place is really immaculately built, and it looks wonderful. Plus they have a huge (3-square-km) adventure playground, and a slope for sleding down.

The class itself was appaling. I had three children from the second year, and one was called Ryo. They all arrived separately which meant I had know idea what to do with them. I tried to introduce myself and show them where England was on a map of the world. I then asked them their names and got them to write them down, basically so that I could look at them for reference. Children have never had respect for me, and this group didn't either: talking amongst themselves in Japanese. I wish I knew what they were saying. It's just very off putting, and I don't know how to get them to stop. Plus Ryo had some kind of baseball card, and the totally shy one who wouldn't even tell me her name had two model white tigers.

After giving up with things they liked and things they didn't like, I resorted to the animal cards that were there. These were basically lots of two piece puzzles, with the name of the animal on one piece, and the name of the baby of that animal on the other. I got them to match them together, though I think it was more of a putting the pieces together thing, rather than any English usage. The white tiger girl left half way through, when her dad came to collect her. He just waited outside for ages until I motioned him to come in.

It was soon the end of the lesson though, and I took them outside with the other class to play about. Seb gave us a lift home in his Merc, as the bus timetable is slightly different for the next few weeks due to exams. Fridays is a good day to teach, however, as they have to fit in the extra hours that were missed due to the typhoon. Hence there is less teaching and supervising to do, but for the same amount of money.

After getting back I had a postcard waiting for me at the reception from my parents. It only took four days to get here. Some of us then went on a walk to You Me Town, where I bought some B5 paper (it's cute!). Our search for a sushi bar was fruitless, and we gave up when someone I asked told us there wasn't one. Oh well! The cold hamburger in cantine was enough.

We watched "Goodbye Lenin!", which was good. And the bonus surprise of the evening: Hannah phoned, which was lovely, though they put her through to the common room as I hadn't heard the phone in my room. We haven't figured out how to transfer the calls elsewhere yet, which meant we only had a brief conversation, which was a real shame. I'm looking forward to hearing from her tomorrow.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Darling - take the baseball cards, white tiggers, and anything else distracting off them!!! Love you lots and lotsxxxxx

12 September, 2005 17:42  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm ... that would be rather cruel! Those are probably their security blanket type things when having to face up to the scary alien being standing in front of them! They are probably expecting two MIBs to come in at any moment and drag Edd away!

12 September, 2005 17:56  

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