So, this is my first week of teaching done! Huzzah! I made it out alive, despite not having any clue about what I’m supposed to do or what if I’m doing it right either, but I’m getting used to resigning all control I have over my day to people at schools. On Tuesday, at around 5th period, everyone in the staffroom gets up and collectively go outside, along with the rest of the students putting on their outside shoes and moving to the oval. It took my a while of wondering around outside trying to talk to students to realise they were practising for their sports festival Saturday week.
But so far, I’ve only “taught” 3 different classes – so most of which just involves me doing a self-introduction about where I’m from and my hobbies, and answering questions have about me. I was freaking out about my lack of preparation (and blogging instead) but after my first class, it didn’t really matter much – there’s not much I have to study or do when I just have to talk about my likes and dislikes (and if anyone Japanese asks, my hobbies are swimming and tennis – I don’t want to shatter their image of sporty Australians and stuff) Today I got into the real meat of the teaching, where I just read out a story aloud from a book as students copied what I said. Fun!
Thursday was also my first day spent at a pre-school. I find it a little strange that I’m trying to teach English to kids when the oldest is like 4 years old, so the teaching by myself thing (and not knowing what the hell I’m supposed to be teaching) was a little meh, but I spent 2 hours beforehand playing with the kids, which was pretty awesome. Sure, I was sweating ridiculously from the bike ride there, and after all the kids insisted on getting piggybacks, but it was pretty fun. I love how like the simplest activity seems amazing from the eyes of a 4 year old, like trying to play catch (I forgot that it takes ages for kids to throw and catch a ball) or just running and chasing people and stuff. It was a little less fun when they decided to play “Let’s all throw balls at the English teacher” and I was bombarded by like 8 or 9 balls at a time, but a little more fun than the kanchouing that I had been prepared for.
I had no idea that this constituted a game, but all the primary school kids and elementary school kids love kanchou, which main involves clasping your hands together so only your two index fingers are sticking up – kinda like a gun. Kids then precede to play this game by seeing how far they can stick up their index fingers up an unsuspecting victim’s arse. Despite initial thoughts of being an extremely isolated activity, apparently sometimes there’s a scoring system involved (double points if you can stick it up until your middle finger joint, or up to the knuckle) and apparently at school, some teachers routinely get into kanchou fights with kids. Meh, chalk it up to a culture difference I guess. Maybe it’s just me - Maybe I find it hard to understand since I’m too old, or like, you know, normal.
But so far, I’ve only “taught” 3 different classes – so most of which just involves me doing a self-introduction about where I’m from and my hobbies, and answering questions have about me. I was freaking out about my lack of preparation (and blogging instead) but after my first class, it didn’t really matter much – there’s not much I have to study or do when I just have to talk about my likes and dislikes (and if anyone Japanese asks, my hobbies are swimming and tennis – I don’t want to shatter their image of sporty Australians and stuff) Today I got into the real meat of the teaching, where I just read out a story aloud from a book as students copied what I said. Fun!
Thursday was also my first day spent at a pre-school. I find it a little strange that I’m trying to teach English to kids when the oldest is like 4 years old, so the teaching by myself thing (and not knowing what the hell I’m supposed to be teaching) was a little meh, but I spent 2 hours beforehand playing with the kids, which was pretty awesome. Sure, I was sweating ridiculously from the bike ride there, and after all the kids insisted on getting piggybacks, but it was pretty fun. I love how like the simplest activity seems amazing from the eyes of a 4 year old, like trying to play catch (I forgot that it takes ages for kids to throw and catch a ball) or just running and chasing people and stuff. It was a little less fun when they decided to play “Let’s all throw balls at the English teacher” and I was bombarded by like 8 or 9 balls at a time, but a little more fun than the kanchouing that I had been prepared for.
I had no idea that this constituted a game, but all the primary school kids and elementary school kids love kanchou, which main involves clasping your hands together so only your two index fingers are sticking up – kinda like a gun. Kids then precede to play this game by seeing how far they can stick up their index fingers up an unsuspecting victim’s arse. Despite initial thoughts of being an extremely isolated activity, apparently sometimes there’s a scoring system involved (double points if you can stick it up until your middle finger joint, or up to the knuckle) and apparently at school, some teachers routinely get into kanchou fights with kids. Meh, chalk it up to a culture difference I guess. Maybe it’s just me - Maybe I find it hard to understand since I’m too old, or like, you know, normal.
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