![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
September 14th, Cute Kids
9/14
The next morning I made us fried cheese filled onigiri and we went to the Elementary school. The Canadian wore a track suit, which is an acceptable uniform for an elementary school teacher (and often times also for higher level teachers on casual days) but I wore my all-out work dress clothes. The day began with an assembly, where they played a true or false quiz game, and it was the most adorable thing ever. The teamwork element between the students of a Japanese primary school really is evident, like everyone says. The kids monitor and regulate each other’s behavior while teachers are more like role models than disciplinarians or even instructors sometimes. Not a lot of the teachers spoke English and of course the kids only had pieces and couldn’t really communicate much, so my Japanese really paid off.
I’d spent a lot of time making our lessons in advance because I was so excited about them, but in the end we were at a bit of a loss for the 4th graders because we were teaching them movement verbs and they know almost no English (actual English classes don’t begin until 7th grade) and the school didn’t give us much to go on. While we plotted our plots, a teacher brought us grapes from the neighboring city. They were great big green grapes and they tasted quite different from the ones I’m used to eating. They were a lot sweeter and a lot more sour, and the inside membrane was kind of slimy and thick, not watery and crunchy. An interesting experience. The Canadian was drawing a bus to complete our flashcard set but something went horribly, horribly wrong and it ended up looking more like a piece of cheese, so I yelled Cheese Bus in Japanese, “chiizu baasu!” and he turned it into a legit cheese bus with holes and yellow and all its cheesey glory. I had a hunch and told him to bring it to class anyway.
We went to the fourth graders first and reviewed the basic verbs like walk, run, bow, stand, sit, etc. This meant a lot of fun Simon says stuff (though they always won because they were so hesitant and watchful of others that no one ever made a mistake) and then we let them call the motions. Then we taught them the transportation verbs and some nouns to use with them and made a few sample sentences. That went very quickly though, especially because they didn’t know sentence structure or verb conjugation. We found ourselves with a lot of extra time, so I suggested that we act out the transportation verbs too, “Sensei says, ride a bicycle! Sensei says drive a car!” At that point, the cheese bus was a HUGE hit, as kids pretended to be mice and held their noses yelling, “ewww stinky!” Kids will be kids :) Though, it was a little much for me when everyone pretended to be seasick and was “throwing up” all over the place during, “Sensei says ride a boat.”
In the 2nd grade class we taught them the body vocabulary words, which was difficult because in Japanese they don’t discriminate between leg and foot, it’s all “ashi.” I sang the Hokey Pokey and we all danced, which they LOVED. The Canadian pretended not to know the song well enough…Right. Like you don’t know the Hokey Pokey. Baby.
After that I whipped out my robots. At first it was a little disorganized and crazy, but we put all the pieces in the middle and instructed the students one by one to choose certain pieces to make their robots and then they returned them one by one when we told them to. CR had had fun making his own robot using ALL the pieces the night before, which shows I would have found a use for them had I taken them home with me again, but I knew the kids would have more fun being able to use them again and so I left them with the Canadian, seeing as I have no elementary schoolers to teach. They even named their robots, it was so cute :) It was also really cool because I had to teach the class in Japanese, which I’d never come close to doing before.
For lunch we went back to the fourth years to eat with them in the classroom. In Japanese Elementary schools, they all eat lunch in their classrooms. They bring around big pots and carts of food and the kids are assigned certain days to do the serving. They put on little aprons and hats and the like and make sure everyone gets food. If there are leftovers, they usually janken for them (rock, paper, scissors). Of course, the grape jello is always more popular than the milk and rice, but I did see a little boy pack away 3 platefuls of curry, so that was pretty amazing. In addition to those things, we had fried shrimp croquette and cabbage. I sat at a tiny little desk and smiled attentively as the kids told me in Japan what they did last weekend and what their favorite colors were. The boys didn’t have much to say, but some of the girls went on and on like a bunch of washer women talking about the matsuri and how they don’t like milk. I asked the kids if they liked curry, and they were all like, “Eh, futsuu desu.” (Meh, it’s normal.) I, for one, like curry. It was a little hot (though not really at all) so the kids made a big show of going “ahhh karai!” so we taught them that in English, karai is “spicy!” Maybe someday in English class they’ll remember the day in Elementary school when that the visiting teacher taught them “spicy.”
After lunch, we had the basic verbs class with the third graders, so we knew we needed to generate some new material, since we’d taught that entire lesson and then some to the fourth graders and still barely filled the time. We concocted a game similar to “No Walking, No Talking, No Showing Your Teeth,” that we’d be allowed to use the gym for. We kicked our Simon Says up to the next level as well, with the Canadian running out the door for “to run,” and getting the whole class to bust a move for “to dance.” On a whim I grabbed the flashcards off the board and held them behind his head so the kids had to shout the instructions to him on my prompting. We let a few kids take a turn at this too, while we sat in their desks pretending to be them (they loved that, of course!). The game went well, though it kind of broke down into a game session than an ENGLISH game session. Still, we all had a good time, though at the very end they took awkward to a whole new level when they switched from constantly ASKING the Canadian and me if we were a couple to TELLING the male teacher that he and I should be a couple. They *really* liked this idea and kept going on and on about how they thought it would be really good for us. Fortunately I didn’t have to look the teacher in the eye again after that because I needed to catch the bus back to Sapporo.
I had to go alone, since The Canadian wasn’t allowed to leave school. I was a little worried for a bit because the bus was about 10 minutes late, but it got there and I got to Sapporo without incident. The view on the drive was beautiful, though I spent most of my time sleeping. When I arrived in Sapporo, the bus was very late, so I figured I could wait an hour and a half and take a very expensive train back or I could wait 2 hours and take a cheap bus back. I ended up spending less than half on my return ticket in one direction than I did on my arrival ticket. If I go again, I’ll be sure to take the bus! It really doesn’t take that much longer and it’s not that much less comfortable.
So I had some time to kill in the city, which I wish I had anticipated because I’d been meaning to go shopping in Sapporo for a while (there are some things I can’t find in the City by the Sea), but there I was carrying a crap ton of stuff and completely disorganized. I walked around a bit outside through the , though I ended up buying nothing. Then I got the bright idea of checking out the station? They HAD to have western sized clothing, right? Or something I could buy?
Underneath the station is literally a city of shops. Several districts in fact. I’d been down there before, but I got so disoriented I couldn’t find anything and I didn’t want to go into any of the clothing stores, no matter how cute it all was, because I was so self conscious that the Japanese women were judging me, thinking, “You will never find anything your size here. Ever. What are you doing?” This was all in my head, but I couldn’t help it :( I ended up just buying some dinner, a Chinese shrimp rice dish, and 300 grams of dried mango for $25 (fruit here is so expensive! >,<) I don’t know why I did it, I just did. I could’ve gotten the same tiny portion from Trader Joe’s for $6. Saaaad.
Got on my bus, slept the whole way home. The City by the Sea was just as I’d left it, except now my Japanese was worse having spent so much time with English speakers. Still, I needed the reprieve from 100% immersion Japanese life.
The next morning I made us fried cheese filled onigiri and we went to the Elementary school. The Canadian wore a track suit, which is an acceptable uniform for an elementary school teacher (and often times also for higher level teachers on casual days) but I wore my all-out work dress clothes. The day began with an assembly, where they played a true or false quiz game, and it was the most adorable thing ever. The teamwork element between the students of a Japanese primary school really is evident, like everyone says. The kids monitor and regulate each other’s behavior while teachers are more like role models than disciplinarians or even instructors sometimes. Not a lot of the teachers spoke English and of course the kids only had pieces and couldn’t really communicate much, so my Japanese really paid off.
I’d spent a lot of time making our lessons in advance because I was so excited about them, but in the end we were at a bit of a loss for the 4th graders because we were teaching them movement verbs and they know almost no English (actual English classes don’t begin until 7th grade) and the school didn’t give us much to go on. While we plotted our plots, a teacher brought us grapes from the neighboring city. They were great big green grapes and they tasted quite different from the ones I’m used to eating. They were a lot sweeter and a lot more sour, and the inside membrane was kind of slimy and thick, not watery and crunchy. An interesting experience. The Canadian was drawing a bus to complete our flashcard set but something went horribly, horribly wrong and it ended up looking more like a piece of cheese, so I yelled Cheese Bus in Japanese, “chiizu baasu!” and he turned it into a legit cheese bus with holes and yellow and all its cheesey glory. I had a hunch and told him to bring it to class anyway.
We went to the fourth graders first and reviewed the basic verbs like walk, run, bow, stand, sit, etc. This meant a lot of fun Simon says stuff (though they always won because they were so hesitant and watchful of others that no one ever made a mistake) and then we let them call the motions. Then we taught them the transportation verbs and some nouns to use with them and made a few sample sentences. That went very quickly though, especially because they didn’t know sentence structure or verb conjugation. We found ourselves with a lot of extra time, so I suggested that we act out the transportation verbs too, “Sensei says, ride a bicycle! Sensei says drive a car!” At that point, the cheese bus was a HUGE hit, as kids pretended to be mice and held their noses yelling, “ewww stinky!” Kids will be kids :) Though, it was a little much for me when everyone pretended to be seasick and was “throwing up” all over the place during, “Sensei says ride a boat.”
In the 2nd grade class we taught them the body vocabulary words, which was difficult because in Japanese they don’t discriminate between leg and foot, it’s all “ashi.” I sang the Hokey Pokey and we all danced, which they LOVED. The Canadian pretended not to know the song well enough…Right. Like you don’t know the Hokey Pokey. Baby.
After that I whipped out my robots. At first it was a little disorganized and crazy, but we put all the pieces in the middle and instructed the students one by one to choose certain pieces to make their robots and then they returned them one by one when we told them to. CR had had fun making his own robot using ALL the pieces the night before, which shows I would have found a use for them had I taken them home with me again, but I knew the kids would have more fun being able to use them again and so I left them with the Canadian, seeing as I have no elementary schoolers to teach. They even named their robots, it was so cute :) It was also really cool because I had to teach the class in Japanese, which I’d never come close to doing before.
For lunch we went back to the fourth years to eat with them in the classroom. In Japanese Elementary schools, they all eat lunch in their classrooms. They bring around big pots and carts of food and the kids are assigned certain days to do the serving. They put on little aprons and hats and the like and make sure everyone gets food. If there are leftovers, they usually janken for them (rock, paper, scissors). Of course, the grape jello is always more popular than the milk and rice, but I did see a little boy pack away 3 platefuls of curry, so that was pretty amazing. In addition to those things, we had fried shrimp croquette and cabbage. I sat at a tiny little desk and smiled attentively as the kids told me in Japan what they did last weekend and what their favorite colors were. The boys didn’t have much to say, but some of the girls went on and on like a bunch of washer women talking about the matsuri and how they don’t like milk. I asked the kids if they liked curry, and they were all like, “Eh, futsuu desu.” (Meh, it’s normal.) I, for one, like curry. It was a little hot (though not really at all) so the kids made a big show of going “ahhh karai!” so we taught them that in English, karai is “spicy!” Maybe someday in English class they’ll remember the day in Elementary school when that the visiting teacher taught them “spicy.”
After lunch, we had the basic verbs class with the third graders, so we knew we needed to generate some new material, since we’d taught that entire lesson and then some to the fourth graders and still barely filled the time. We concocted a game similar to “No Walking, No Talking, No Showing Your Teeth,” that we’d be allowed to use the gym for. We kicked our Simon Says up to the next level as well, with the Canadian running out the door for “to run,” and getting the whole class to bust a move for “to dance.” On a whim I grabbed the flashcards off the board and held them behind his head so the kids had to shout the instructions to him on my prompting. We let a few kids take a turn at this too, while we sat in their desks pretending to be them (they loved that, of course!). The game went well, though it kind of broke down into a game session than an ENGLISH game session. Still, we all had a good time, though at the very end they took awkward to a whole new level when they switched from constantly ASKING the Canadian and me if we were a couple to TELLING the male teacher that he and I should be a couple. They *really* liked this idea and kept going on and on about how they thought it would be really good for us. Fortunately I didn’t have to look the teacher in the eye again after that because I needed to catch the bus back to Sapporo.
I had to go alone, since The Canadian wasn’t allowed to leave school. I was a little worried for a bit because the bus was about 10 minutes late, but it got there and I got to Sapporo without incident. The view on the drive was beautiful, though I spent most of my time sleeping. When I arrived in Sapporo, the bus was very late, so I figured I could wait an hour and a half and take a very expensive train back or I could wait 2 hours and take a cheap bus back. I ended up spending less than half on my return ticket in one direction than I did on my arrival ticket. If I go again, I’ll be sure to take the bus! It really doesn’t take that much longer and it’s not that much less comfortable.
So I had some time to kill in the city, which I wish I had anticipated because I’d been meaning to go shopping in Sapporo for a while (there are some things I can’t find in the City by the Sea), but there I was carrying a crap ton of stuff and completely disorganized. I walked around a bit outside through the , though I ended up buying nothing. Then I got the bright idea of checking out the station? They HAD to have western sized clothing, right? Or something I could buy?
Underneath the station is literally a city of shops. Several districts in fact. I’d been down there before, but I got so disoriented I couldn’t find anything and I didn’t want to go into any of the clothing stores, no matter how cute it all was, because I was so self conscious that the Japanese women were judging me, thinking, “You will never find anything your size here. Ever. What are you doing?” This was all in my head, but I couldn’t help it :( I ended up just buying some dinner, a Chinese shrimp rice dish, and 300 grams of dried mango for $25 (fruit here is so expensive! >,<) I don’t know why I did it, I just did. I could’ve gotten the same tiny portion from Trader Joe’s for $6. Saaaad.
Got on my bus, slept the whole way home. The City by the Sea was just as I’d left it, except now my Japanese was worse having spent so much time with English speakers. Still, I needed the reprieve from 100% immersion Japanese life.