September 26, 2007
Let me start by saying I went to bed last night around 11:00 pm and was still agonizing over Kindergarten at 2:00 am. Finally, I just decided that I’d do the same thing I did last week and only change it a little. It worked last week and everyone was happy, so I figured the worst that could happen this time was that I’d be called “repetitive.” So I took my paper and crayons and we started out “reviewing” by drawing a face just like last week, only this time smaller and faster. Then we moved on to arms & legs, feet and hands, body and so forth. So I basically just expanded on the material from last week and used the same process to do it. Once again, everyone was happy. Whew.
After the Kindergarten classes were done, I asked the principal for suggestions for next week. It took a little bit of back and forth until he understood that I was asking for ideas. He didn’t help much; I a starting to realize that his limited English may be more of a factor in the way I perceive his attitude than anything else. He’s not tough and strict; he just doesn’t know what to say to me. He may even be a little intimidated by me. Whatever. Basically, he didn’t suggest any specific activities, but did mention a few subject areas, which I really already knew. Still, he mentioned them in a discussion about next week, so I’ll work with it. Here is the list:
Names of Seasons
Colors
Weather
Shapes
Now in my opinion these kids already know colors pretty well, even the littlest ones. That’s not to say that “easy” stuff doesn’t have its place. No 2 year-old wants a constant challenge. Names of seasons and weather are easy enough to work with a little bit, but for a half hour? “Shapes” looks like the best target for next time I think, but I’ll have to come up with an activity. I am NOT going to wait until 2:00 am next Tuesday. He also suggested repeating the face and body parts next week; I guess today wasn’t too much repetition. I suspect from now on I’ll plan to do something new every other week and review/repeat it the second week. Repetition and review is important to them, and a whole lot easier on me too.
If anyone has any good activities for any of the four subjects above, send ‘em in and if I use your idea, I’ll send you a fabulous prize! OK, I won’t really, but I’ve been asking for suggestions so often lately that I want to make it sound good.
The afternoon class had another new student today, and all the regulars showed up, so I had five of them. Things went quickly and smoothly, and everyone left happily. I was supposed to go to an art museum with one of the students during the break, but she forgot her pass, so that’ll be next week instead. So this time, I wandered back over to the Peace Park and remembered to take my camera with me. I have a HUGE number of pictures from this place in the gallery. Take a look.
Then during the evening class, the new student who came to last week’s afternoon class came to try the night class instead. He’s more in line with them by age, but I think he’s quite a bit more advanced in English than they are, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. Time will tell. And then I came home without incident. Basically it was a good, trouble-free day. And on top of all that, there was a nice breeze today as well.
Marc, on the other hand, has had a stinker of a day. While I only have the three-hour support center group in Bitchu-Takahashi, Marc has that as well (on Wednesdays), but in addition he has two regular classes to deal with. One of these, he described as an easy class that he wouldn’t have to prepare for. That’s not unusual, I’d say my Wednesday evening class is about the same; no real work involved. But his other class… heh heh.
Apparently the intern who was here before taught the entire class herself without any input from the “real” teacher, who didn’t even show up much of the time. Marc is expected to do lesson plans and actually teach the whole course on his own for real. Really, that was what I had in my mind coming over here, and I wouldn’t mind doing that. I think it’d be fun, but then again, I am interested in actually being an English teacher when this is all over. Marc has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to be an English teacher, and from what I remember from the TEFL Classes, that’s probably not a bad thing. Tonight he realized that he’s going to have to work his butt off for this class. Not only that, but he doesn’t get home until around 10:00 in the evening. We actually ran into each other on the little train coming home.
Another thing we both learned as we compared notes tonight. My Kindergarteners are younger than his nursery school kids. The children at the kindergarten are 2-3 in the young class to 5 years old I the upper class. Marc’s nursery school children are 6 and 7 years old. We just realized tonight that in Japan the two terms are backwards from what we thought. The nursery school comes after kindergarten. Why? I don’t know, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s obviously correct.
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September 29th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Here are several ideas for your kindergarten kids. With the season one you could do a tree in each of the seasons. You could name the parts of the trees, use the name for snow and leaves falling green grass underneath if they have 4 seasons. ( I think you mentioned that they did.) You could also do paper cut outs of bikes, cars, buildings, street sign, toys, a stick figure mom and dad and name them. For weather you could cut out different pictures or print different pictures of different weather and name them. Or you could have them draw different different weather pictures and name the colors in English and then name what they have drawn. Hopefully I have been helpful.