It was a weird day back in front of the students – lots of unusual things happened, but I just rolled with it and it turned out fine.
I had four classes today, but only three of them panned out. The first was a solo class in front of some of our best second year students. They looked at me with their mouths hanging open, trying to make some kind of sense of what I was saying. I stuck to English though, and lots of gestures and sign language.
The class went really well, and I’m a big fan of these students. Most of them are getting over the shy thing, so they react well to projects and group work. Today I had them drawing which always is fun for everyone. I walked around and asked them in what things were, and they worked to try to explain their pictures in English to me. Sometimes it’s hard from them to speak in front of all their classmates, so explaining to me in front of three other people that are willing to help out is much easier.
Mr. Hayashi’s class went just fine, we started doing mock interviews for the upcoming STEP test. One girl in that class does great in English until she sits down in an interview setting – then she freezes up, stumbles, and gives up. It’s strange to see her demeanor change so quickly, but today she did it again. I’m going to try to relax her next time, and hopefully I can coach her for the official interview. I know she can do it – she has the ability – it’s just getting over the nervousness.
Oshita sensei’s class didn’t happen – due to a scheduling error I was supposed to be in two classes at the same time, so he was left with about five minutes to come up with something to do for his class last minute. I felt bad, but it was the scheduler’s fault, and I’ll do my class with him next week.
Maeda sensei’s class was all about numbers, and for my students, number in English are really tough. Million, thousand, one hundred, and all the commas and where they go – it’s tough stuff. I really drilled them on it, and we played a game at the end where students competed head to head trying to write down the number that I said out loud. It was fun, and the teams that I set up (the left side of the class versus the right) really got into it. I was surprised.
I had the afternoon free, and around 4:30 the history teacher came by and gave me a hot tip that both the principal and vice-principal were on a business trip, so he authorized my early departure. I took advantage and hit the road.
I got on the train home, sat down on the bench seats, and the girl to my right suddenly smiled at me, and it was one of my third year students. I didn’t recognize her because she had already changed out of her school uniform.
There’s a respectable distance that people keep when on the train. When the train is crowded it might be just an inch or two – when it’s really crowded you just make a show of moving away from someone, even though there’s nowhere to go. When the train is empty, like today, the farther away the better. We were sitting apart with space for about five people between us, so it made for a difficult conversation. She decided to move over closer so we could talk, and before I knew it she was right next to me. RIGHT next to me.
I looked uncomfortably around the train car for other students or teachers, but there were just people sleeping and ignoring us, and so we talked about this year compared to last, what she will do next year when she goes to college, what she’s doing on the train today, etc. She did a good job with English, but we frequently lapsed into Japanese to get a point across.
Finally at my stop we both got off, and she walked with me to Ito Yokado – she ended up doing some shopping there. I passed on through on to my place, and made up a dinner of hot dogs inspired by the Dutch hot dog place in Takasago.
Tomorrow is just two classes, but I’ll be doing ESS in the afternoon and I’ve got a Japanese lesson after school, so I’ll be fairly busy at the end of the day.
