Tuesday, April 22, 2003

What I did today Today, I... Taught three lessons in Miyanohara Elementary School; Got a haircut (I'm sure it's not straight at the back!); Got home to find the takkyubin man waiting with a parcel for me... and realised that I didn't have any money to pay the customs charges;

My lessons in Miyanohara didn't go badly today. With the firsts and seconds, I played 'Cat, cat, dog', and then started to introduce some words for 'Simon Says'. The first years did quite well, even though it was their first lesson with me, although two or three of them seemed still to be under the impression that they didn't have to bother to listen, that everything would be explained to them individually. I had lunch with the third years, and then after lunch took the thirds and fourths. We played the ladder game using numbers and shapes; the children didn't have any problems, but they didn't seem to enjoy the game as much as I had expected they would. Normally when I play this game, the gym turns into something very close to a riot, but this time the whole group was somehow reserved. The final lesson was with the fifths and sixths, and this lesson, despite my holding it in the library, did seem to come close to riot status. I did the lesson about continents and countries, and it went well- there was plenty of opportunity to joke with the children (especially given some of their suggestions for the names of the continents), and I'm sure they enjoyed the lesson. There's a fine line between having a good time and getting out of hand, though, and looking back I'm not quite sure on which side of the line this lesson fell.