January 23rd, 2008
Full-Schedule Wednesday Again
It was drizzling this morning on the way to the train station. Not so much as to get me soaked on the ride there, but enough to be bot cold and annoying. I took the earlier Shinkansen, so I arrived in Hiroshima about 20 minutes early. I picked up an egg-salad sandwich and some kind of sugar-bread thing that I won’t quite call a donut. At least now that I know about the earlier train I have some opportunity go eat breakfast and not have to run to make the kindergarten in time.
We continued singing the ABC song and we practiced raising arms and legs. I’m not quite sure where to go next on the route to playing Simon Says. I thought today would be a good day to shake things up at the kindergarten a bit. I brought along two packs of the fash cards that my parents sent me way way back in October I think. The cards were sets of Colors and Shapes as well as the Alphabet. They sent two other sets of cards that aren’t gong to be useful, but these two always looked promising, and their time has come.
Wow!
The kids already know their ABC; even the three-year-olds. I find that pretty amazing. In America, not all three year olds know the ABCs. Here, not only do they know them, but I did the flashcards in mixed-up order and they still knew them. Keep in mind, that the ABCs are a foreign language here; how many three-year-old Americans know the Japanese alphabet? Or Arabic? Or Russian? Not very darn many, that’s for sure.
The youngest kids had a little more trouble with the shapes. I had taught them about circles, squares, rectangles and triangles, but today was their first experience with ovals and stars. I’ll save the colors for next week, but I know they already know most of them. Now I wish I had tried them earlier in the year, maybe I could have done more with the alphabet cards.
I stopped in the office on the way out and remembered to pick up my train fare reimbursement from last week. The lady who handles those things was back this week, and as always, she’s on the ball.
Then it was off to the Culture Center. I picked up another donut at the convenience store on the corner near the center. Then I went up to the room and got settled in. I made copies of a news article about the death of Bobby Fischer. I figured that would be a good one for discussion since it leads into chess, the Cold War, insanity, politics, and who knows what else the students would have come up with. We never actually got to the article however. We all talked about what we did over the break for basically the entire two hours class. It was fun, but I’m sure it was a one-time thing; back to business next time.
One student went to Libya for vacation. Libya of all places! She also has gone to Croatia, Pakistan, and Greece in the past. I wonder if she’s a terrorist in training? I doubt it, but those are some pretty odd vacation sites. One the students in the later class is going to London and Paris next week, and another will be going to Hong Kong in March. These folks sure do travel a lot!
I Have New Readers.
One student asked if I was going to go to Hawaii when I was finished here. I was shocked, since the idea had only just come up this past weekend. Was that a regular practice of the teachers here on their way home? No. It turns out that some of them have been reading my blog! One of the students even printed out a few pages for another whose computer is broken. Another brought me a printout and asked me what “Col” meant (see January 20th for the uncorrected source). It was supposed to be “cold” but I didn’t type the D. Now they are correcting MY spelling. AUGH! I hope I’ve only said good things about all of them here. I mentioned the blog to one of them a week or two before the break, and now it’s common knowledge. By the end of class I had written the URL on the board for all of them. I always tell them to practice reading English…I’m just not sure if MY English is good enough for them. At least it’s authentic!
One student mentioned podcasts, and that she was starting to learn Spanish from one of them. I pulled out my Palm and let her hear the “Coffee Break Spanish” podcast. I just happened to have the one with me; it’s the one with the Scottish-accent teachers. It was the same one! I thought that was pretty neat. She’s learning English, and then using that English to learn Spanish. Wow! Not only that, but a Japanese woman and American man are both learning to speak Spanish from a group of people in Scotland. What can I say other than that is just plain NEAT!
Otis And Me
Then it was break time. I mentioned a while back that I wanted to try the Mexican Restaurant in Hiroshima. Supposedly, it’s the ONLY one, and I have no reason to doubt that. I found the place easily enough, but it was deserted. I walked in and the guy behind the counter told me in English that they would be closing at 4:00 so a live band could set up for the evening. It was 3:25. I ordered and ate in a hurry. I ordered chicken and bean nachos and a Mexican pizza. Both arrived burnt. I suspect they turned the heat up too high in order to get it cooked faster. I was not too impressed. I saw a bug run across the table while I was eating as well, and that’s not a good thing. I might have been willing to give the food at Otis’ another try, but bugs are bugs and I am just finicky about that.
Then it was back to the center for the old folks class. I hope they never read the website, because they probably wouldn’t appreciate being called the old folks all the time. There were only three students when the class started, and a fourth arrived about an hour late. I don’t know where the others were, but they’ll probably catch up with the rest next week. We talked what we did over the break, and did a little activity about life 50 years ago and now, what things are better and what things are worse. They liked that, and did a good bit of arguing about whether things are better or not.
Then it was home on the Shinkansen and probably soon to bed.
Tomorrow is a day off, and I will probably go to the library. For my Friday class, I am going to do exactly what I did on Tuesday, so I don’t have to prepare anything for them. It would be nice if I could find some materials to use in next week’s classes early so I wont have to worry about it over the weekend.
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