Checking off the list
So I haven’t updated in a while and I’ll probably forget some things.
The main point is, I’ve had some ups and downs in the past few weeks, as you do.
I got to go to an eikaiwa for adults in my town, which was great. All of the people were super sweet. One man asked how many boyfriends I had, so I took a leaf from Pacchan’s book and told him I had one for every day of the week.
I’ve also been continually going to dance practice for a local performance that is coming up soon. It’s about the founding of our town and I’m excited to be in it! I am but a lowly village person, but I ‘m glad because it took me a while to learn the dance. Plus it’s all old ladies who give me candies and cute little kindergarteners who are participating because their grandma’s are in it. They finally warmed up to me during last practice and played with me. They were the police and I was a robber who was locked up for stealing money, as I only had 100 yen in my wallet. It was so cute.
This past working week I had some pretty great classes. My 6th grade class loved alphabet karuta and I plan to upgrade it later with phonics instead of saying the letters. I was also productive and made 4 sets of alphabet cards for the karuta. Later, I also made four sets each of upper and lowercase letters so that we can play memory and other game with them.
I also had some 3rd grade students remember their shapes lesson T^T They saw me in the corridor and yelled “STAR” while making a star shape, just like I told them to. It was awesome.
Then I had a 2nd grade class and for the first time ever made children cry. And I mean, children, because not one but two kids cried in my class. I think the pressure from having to do their own self-intro was too much. It was pretty surprising, because every single class I’ve had for the past month and a half at every level, even kindergarten, has been fine with it. I never planned to have the kids speak one by one, but had so many teachers ask me to let the kids introduce themselves to me that I just ended up incorporating it into my self-intro lesson.
I think it was also to do with the fact that their regular teacher wasn’t there that day as he/she was chaperoning a field trip. However, I think I handled the situation pretty well by not freaking out, and consoling the kids while I had the other children continue introducing themselves.
Next was teaching emotions so I definitely skipped sad, and then ended the lesson by giving everyone a sticker for their hard work. Then I made sure I apologised to the two kids, using their names, and asking if they were alright, which they were.
Ultimately, I checked “Make kids cry in class” off of my ALT list of experiences, and I’m glad that I dealt with it well.
