Fun Times with 7th Graders
It never ceases to amaze me how much I actually enjoy teaching 7th graders. Today I was helping them write descriptions of pictures. Here are some highlights.
First off, they are currently singing “Stand By Me,” which is absolutely precious. I dare you to imagine a room full of Japanese 12 and 13 year olds enthusiastically singing that song and not smile.
In 1-2, a girl asked how to say “climbed” to explain the picture of her and her friends hiking a mountain. She was really confused by the silent b, and I later heard her asking her classmate who moved to Japan from the Philippines this year (and therefore is fluent in English) how to say the sentence she wrote. He said it for her several times, and she repeated it with varying degrees of success. Once she got close to pronouncing it he said “[sure, good enough.]”
While checking the new vocabulary words in 1-1, we came to the word “cute.” The teacher called on a boy who looked at his paper and gave the answer. The teacher then told him to look at my face and say it again, which got the whole class laughing. While walking around this class, I stopped at the same boy’s desk and noticed that he had a big bandage on his temple. I said “Are you ok?” and he said “No.” I asked what happened and he said “I don’t know.” I sincerely hope he either meant that he didn’t understand the question or couldn’t answer it in English and not that he actually had no idea how he got a head injury.
In class 1-5, a boy asked me how to say “It was snowing, so it was hard to see.” This immediately followed the teacher telling them to use easy English so their classmates can understand when they present. I translated it for him, but told him his classmates won’t be able to understand it. That part really confused him though, because they haven’t learned the word “understand” yet. He called out to his friend sitting near him for help, and they were hilariously trying to work out what I had said. His friend said “maybe if I write it I’ll get it” and tried to write down what I had said, but couldn’t spell understand. I flipped to the glossary in their book and showed them what it meant. They were still a little confused, and at this point the friend tapped out and called another friend over to help. Another student called me over, so I asked the teacher to explain it to him.
Finally, the ever exciting 1-3. The teacher says this class is like a zoo, and it certainly was today. My favorite moment was when I told a boy to sit down and he said “I can’t” “You can’t sit down?” “Yes.” “Why?” “TNT.” “...There’s TNT on your chair?” “Yes.” “Ok, let’s go look.” I steered him back to his seat, and he took a folded paper shape from geometry class off his desk, put it on his chair, pointed and said “TNT.” I very carefully picked it up, set it on his desk and said “Ok, safe. Now write!” After class, he said “Do you want a sticker?” I said “Oh, sure,” so we traded stickers. He took a brown felt smiley face poop sticker off his pencil case and stuck it on my sticker pouch in return for a cat-shaped-sushi sticker.
