The highlight of today was wrapping up my Tuesday classes for the year. The Tuesday classes were really challenging, because I had to come up with a new lesson every week for the entire three terms, and sometimes it was really tough to keep three classrooms of forty students busy every week. The teachers that I worked with helped a lot, though, and since I was helping fill a hole in their lecturing schedule, they were very appreciative.
I told the students today that all I wanted to do was relax and play games, and they were definitely up for that. We did a gigantic three stage gameshow type lesson. I had them make up groups of four, choose a name for their team (in English), and choose a leader. The names they came up with were great. Some like “Zousan” (Mr. Elephant), “Tomato”, “NHK”, and “E->Bayashi”.
Stage one was a trivia contest. I asked them about various facts from the year – mainly about me and my teaching partner. They huddled together and tried to figure out things like how many chocolates Mr. Kimura received, how tall Mr. Yamamoto was, and how old I was. I was surprised how much people got into it. I thought to myself during the lesson – hey, this is going great!
The last question was “What is Bryan’s favorite food?”. Two groups from two different classes submitted the same answer, “women”. Mr. Yamamoto got a kick out of that.
As each correct answer was revealed, the students erupted into screams, cheers, or groans, depending on their answer. People would jump up and down like Chris Rock’s audience at the Apollo.
Stage Two was a dictation contest. I dictated the sentence “On a rainy day I like to eat soup and sandwiches.” at full native speaker speed. I gave them a point for each correct word. You could hear a pin drop while everyone hung on my every word.
Finally, for the last stage they had to write down all the words they could think of that started with the letter “B”. They had 3 minutes, and everyone did a pretty good job. One group of girls came up with 211 words, but when we looked at their paper they apparently didn’t understand the begin with “B” part, and just had 211 words. They laughed and laughed when they realized what had happened.
At one point I got the giggles along with a couple of students in the front, and it took me a minute to get composed. It’s only the second time that I’ve cracked up in front of a class, and they loved it. Once you get the giggles, it’s hard to stop, but I was able to get it under control before it got stupid.
Mr. Yamamoto asked me to give some words of wisdom at the end, and I was surprised that everyone actually listened carefully to what I said. Mr. Yamamoto translated it for maximum effect, and I think some of them might take it to heart. Mr. Yamamoto certainly thought it was great – and he said that everyone afterwards told him that the lesson was the best one yet.
Just how much learning goes on during my lessons is not entirely clear. I concentrate on fun and actually using English, and if there are a few mistakes along the way that’s a small price to pay.
After school the history teacher came by and asked me if I was OK. I said sure, and he pointed at my forehead and said that I had a pimple. What a guy. I told him that I thought I might survive the pimple, but thanks for your concern. I explained that what he had just said would be considered very rude in America. He said it’s perfectly normal in Japan to use somebody’s facial blemishes as conversation starters, but today was the first time it has happened to me in almost two years of living in Japan. Can’t you tell I love my conversations with the history teacher?
After school I took off and bought some sushi on the way home. I’ve been spending the last two days trying to get a handle on a database program to help with memorization. Once you get past a thousand flashcards things get pretty unwieldy, and the web-based solutions I’ve been using aren’t so smart. I’ve found a couple of software solutions and I’m experimenting with some of these right now.
I’m off to bed, but not before I spend a few minutes of bliss with Vanilla Mint toothpaste. I’ve been looking forward to this all day!
