i think japanese people put drugs in their music
i finally taught a class today!!!
actually, "taught" is a bit of an overstatement, since all i was supposed to do was introduce myself to the students and keep them entertained for 20 minutes, but it's a lot closer to teaching than sitting in the teachers room all day trying to think of things to do.
the first class was a bit shaky... when i was talking about where i was from i thought it would be fun to pass around american money so they could see what it looked like, but they got waaay too excited about it and started talking and it took a while to get them back on track. and later, when i was asking them questions, i had trouble getting a response at all... i started preparing myself for the fact that the students' interest in my non-japaneseness would be trumped by the typical middle school apathy for all things school related. the rest of the classes went really well, though. i skipped the american money part, and since the main teacher had some idea of what i was going to say and was able to translate for the students more easily. (one of the trademarks of the JET program is that there is very little communication between the japanese teachers and the language assistants so the lessons are never fully prepared or rehearsed beforehand.)
the classes i was teaching today were all ichi-nensei, or first-year middle school students. a lot of the students were really energetic and funny, but there were both extremes: some of the students were jumping out of their chairs with excitement while others weren't paying attention at all. none of them could point to massachusetts on a map, but all of them knew about the boston red sox and there were at least a few kids in each class that could name the two japanese players on the team. thusly, the "guess where i'm from" portion of the presentation never got the same kind of enthusiasm that the "do you know which baseball team is from massachusetts?" portion. (actually, even though i told the kids i was from the united states and had a map of the u.s. on the board, there were a few kids who enthusiastically yelled out "canada!" when i asked them to guess which state i was from... and when i said i was from "massachusetts" i got a lot of blank stares.)
the other part of the presentation that got a strong response is when i mentioned that i liked manga. in every class there was a student that asked "which manga???" and seemed really interested no matter which one i mentioned... however, there was one class that exploded when i said the word "manga," and almost wet themselves when i said i liked naruto. there were some girls in the back that got really excited and kept asking if i'd read --insert long list of manga titles-- and seemed really disappointed when they mentioned one i didn't know. after i finished the self-introduction i always gave students a chance to ask me questions, and they usually asked things like "how old are you?" or "how tall are you" or (inevitably) "what's your favorite kind of japanese food?" but in this class, all the questions were "who's your favorite character in gintama?" or "who's your favorite character in bleach?" there was one girl in the class who had the same favorite characters as me and she squeaked every time i answered one of the questions, so it was a pretty q&a session!
tomorrow i get to meet the ni-nensei (second-years) and introduce myself again, but this time i have to take up 45 minutes... which means that i have more preparation to do. do i sound bitter? i've been finding pictures, putting together posters and practicing self-introduction stuff for the past two weeks, because every time i have to introduce myself, i'm told to do something different, which means finding different pictures, designing more posters and rehearsing another speech. (yeah, i've rehearsed more for this than for any of the presentations i gave in college o.O but if you've ever seen me present something, you'll understand why!) since i've been staying after school late to help the speech contest students, it means i don't have much time for anything but work if i want to get to bed before 1:00am. (so if you're wondering why i've been so slow replying to emails...) but however much i feel like killing myself when i'm stuck in the office (it's so tempting to sleep on my desk, but so impossible to do so!) the students really make it worthwhile! the speech contest kids continue to impress me with their hard work, and the other students are just... hilarious. i do miss sleeping though... maybe friday it'll happen.
actually, "taught" is a bit of an overstatement, since all i was supposed to do was introduce myself to the students and keep them entertained for 20 minutes, but it's a lot closer to teaching than sitting in the teachers room all day trying to think of things to do.
the first class was a bit shaky... when i was talking about where i was from i thought it would be fun to pass around american money so they could see what it looked like, but they got waaay too excited about it and started talking and it took a while to get them back on track. and later, when i was asking them questions, i had trouble getting a response at all... i started preparing myself for the fact that the students' interest in my non-japaneseness would be trumped by the typical middle school apathy for all things school related. the rest of the classes went really well, though. i skipped the american money part, and since the main teacher had some idea of what i was going to say and was able to translate for the students more easily. (one of the trademarks of the JET program is that there is very little communication between the japanese teachers and the language assistants so the lessons are never fully prepared or rehearsed beforehand.)
the classes i was teaching today were all ichi-nensei, or first-year middle school students. a lot of the students were really energetic and funny, but there were both extremes: some of the students were jumping out of their chairs with excitement while others weren't paying attention at all. none of them could point to massachusetts on a map, but all of them knew about the boston red sox and there were at least a few kids in each class that could name the two japanese players on the team. thusly, the "guess where i'm from" portion of the presentation never got the same kind of enthusiasm that the "do you know which baseball team is from massachusetts?" portion. (actually, even though i told the kids i was from the united states and had a map of the u.s. on the board, there were a few kids who enthusiastically yelled out "canada!" when i asked them to guess which state i was from... and when i said i was from "massachusetts" i got a lot of blank stares.)
the other part of the presentation that got a strong response is when i mentioned that i liked manga. in every class there was a student that asked "which manga???" and seemed really interested no matter which one i mentioned... however, there was one class that exploded when i said the word "manga," and almost wet themselves when i said i liked naruto. there were some girls in the back that got really excited and kept asking if i'd read --insert long list of manga titles-- and seemed really disappointed when they mentioned one i didn't know. after i finished the self-introduction i always gave students a chance to ask me questions, and they usually asked things like "how old are you?" or "how tall are you" or (inevitably) "what's your favorite kind of japanese food?" but in this class, all the questions were "who's your favorite character in gintama?" or "who's your favorite character in bleach?" there was one girl in the class who had the same favorite characters as me and she squeaked every time i answered one of the questions, so it was a pretty q&a session!
tomorrow i get to meet the ni-nensei (second-years) and introduce myself again, but this time i have to take up 45 minutes... which means that i have more preparation to do. do i sound bitter? i've been finding pictures, putting together posters and practicing self-introduction stuff for the past two weeks, because every time i have to introduce myself, i'm told to do something different, which means finding different pictures, designing more posters and rehearsing another speech. (yeah, i've rehearsed more for this than for any of the presentations i gave in college o.O but if you've ever seen me present something, you'll understand why!) since i've been staying after school late to help the speech contest students, it means i don't have much time for anything but work if i want to get to bed before 1:00am. (so if you're wondering why i've been so slow replying to emails...) but however much i feel like killing myself when i'm stuck in the office (it's so tempting to sleep on my desk, but so impossible to do so!) the students really make it worthwhile! the speech contest kids continue to impress me with their hard work, and the other students are just... hilarious. i do miss sleeping though... maybe friday it'll happen.