My morning schedule had me busy with four classes in a row. The first two were classrooms that I had visited before. The students were happy to have me back and we talked a lot before class started and after it ended.
The third class was another self-introduction. In this class there were some really good English students. One student had gone to Spokane to do a homestay. His English was really good. He didn’t have a lot of vocabulary, but he knew how to have a smooth conversation. He and several other students asked some great questions and we had a good time during the class.
The fourth class was teaching to two students in the disabled category – they were both deaf. One was completely deaf in one ear and the other had limited hearing ability in both ears and used some devices in his ears to hear.
These guys were really cute – first year students and really excited about being at a real junior high school. It was a challenge for me at first – I’ve had no experience teaching disabled students, and so I was pretty nervous. The students were just as nervous, but instead of standing in front of them I asked the teacher if I could sit down with them. I used my book full of photos from America to get them started, and soon they were comfortable.
These guys have trouble speaking Japanese – let alone English, so most of the class was in Japanese. I used English the whole time, but they were so into the pictures and they had so many questions, most of the talking involved the teacher trying to interpret what the students were saying in Japanese!
By the end of the class they were both really comfortable, though, and we had them speaking a little bit of English to me. The students from the next classroom, two third year students with hearing problems, also came over after marveling at the size of my shoes. I talked with them a little bit and they were really happy to meet me finally.
In the afternoon I was free, and then I went to help one of the first year classrooms do clean up duty. One of the students asked me how to say “mechanical pencil” in English. I told them, not expecting much, but they kept repeating it after me until they had it memorized, and then they fanned out and started telling other students in other classrooms. Soon the hallway was full of kids chanting “mechanical pencil, mechanical pencil”. Imagine 60 junior high school students running around saying “mechanical pencil” over and over – it was quite a scene. I couldn’t stop laughing.
After school I hung out with some of the different clubs. I watched the judo club, the kendo club, and even paid a visit to the track and field club and baton twirling club. All the kids love it when I drop by, and the baton club girls really enjoyed watching me nearly sprain my wrist trying to twirl a baton.
I squeezed in a few games of ping pong with the ping pong club. Even though most of the time they beat me pretty good, they kept saying “Bryan is strong, Bryan is strong!” It was fun, but I had a little sheen of sweat on me as I headed home.
I’m back home now and getting some leftovers ready for dinner. Ever since this morning I’ve had a stiff shoulder and neck, so I’m drinking cold beer to maybe relax the muscles, and I’ll take a steaming hot bath after dinner to see if that helps. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back at 100%.
