Moving on.
Wednesday morning was awesome, because for whatever reason I slept like a rock and woke up actually feeling rested! It`s been a few weeks since that happened. Anyway, the math teacher came over after homeroom, and we spent about 15 minutes figuring out the math for today`s lesson. The modified formula he has for Zeller`s algorithm makes a lot more sense than the code versions I was finding online, thank god. I also learned about Kaprekar numbers, which are kind of cool, and we`re playing Sudoku. I`m not actually a fan of Sudoku at all, but hey, I learned that it means "number place", so that`s neat. And makes sense.
My English classes today were pretty boring. I had the sports course for second period, and a make-up class for class 2 in period 4. In between them was the math class, which was a lot of fun. Turns out it was just the exchange kids, rather than a normal class with our students as well. I really like this math teacher, because you can tell he`s really passionate about math and the cool things you can do with it, and he wants to share that enthusiasm with the students. We started out with the "magic trick" math, which goes like this:
Think of your favourite number.
Add 3.
Double that.
Add four.
Divide by two.
Subtract your favourite number.
The number you are thinking of now is..... 5!
So yeah, they were impressed by that. They also had fun calculating the day of the week they were born on. The Kaprekar number activity worked, but they were less enthusiastic about it. I got the, "Miss, what do we do with this?" once they had reached the Kaprekar number (6174). Answer: "Pretty much nothing. It`s just cool." After that was Sudoku, which the kids really enjoyed. Maegawa-sensei was really surprised that Sudoku was so popular in Western culture! We also got to chat a bit while the kids were doing their puzzles, which was interesting with his broken English and my broken Japanese, but I think I`m beginning to understand a bit more. Go me! Apparently he used to run marathons in college, and he also very much recommends a trip to Okinawa.
The rest of my Wednesday work day was spent working on this week`s conversation class lesson. I want to do the shopping lesson while the exchange students are here, because they can easily function as English-speaking retail workers, which gives all of my students a chance to practice shopping in English. I think it`s more important for them to be familiar with customer phrases than employee phrases. Let`s face it: none of them are going to be working in an English-speaking store any time soon. They`re more likely to go on vacation and need to buy souvenirs. So my first part of the lesson is going to be looking at ads. I`ve printed out copies of the Metro and Foodland ads from home (PS, can someone please try the Cookies & Creme spread in the Metro ad? And then lie to me and tell me it`s the worst thing you`ve ever put in your mouth? Because right now I really, really want to try some. Thanks!), and I`m going to make the exchange students give my students grocery lists; the students then have to find out which of the items on that list are on sale. The second half, I`ve assigned the exchange students to stores, and made up shopping lists for each of my students. I thought about making longer lists, and having the shops either be out of some items or not carry them, but I think that might be pushing it a bit.
After school on Wednesday, the exchange students were participating in a tea ceremony hosted by the tea ceremony club, and I was invited to join. Of course I went, because I'm pretty sure I will only say "no" to tea when Mom is trying to serve me her orange cinnamon nonsense. So we went down to the tea ceremony club room and had tea and sweets (again with the red bean paste). The thing about formal tea ceremonies, though, is that they're conducted entirely in seiza position. For the Japanese people, who are used to this, it's no big deal; it kills most foreigners after about a minute or two. My supervisor is taking pictures as we're all sitting there, smiling or looking on interestedly, trying not to let it show that we can no longer feel our feet and legs.
Today began with me thinking it was Friday. I hate it when that happens. So depressing. Anyway. My school day began with attempting to explain the phrase "hit it off" to my supervisor, with the help of the Australian teacher. I also spent some time making a fact sheet about Canada that my supervisor at the special needs school requested for my high school class (one kid) next week. This meant delving into "Canadian Foods", which means that I have unsatisfied cravings for poutine, butter tarts, and beaver tails. If someone express mailed me a beaver tail right now, they would be my new favourite person, hands down. I wouldn`t even care if it was a Nutella and banana one, and I don`t really like either of those things.
Conversation class went AMAZINGLY well! The kids were so surprised (and a little confused) by the supermarket ads, and had a lot of fun trying to look through for the items on their lists. The only thing I would recommend if someone else ever wanted to do this, is try to get the original ads sent to you from home in advance. The printouts on A4 size paper work alright, but the letters are sometimes tiny, so you only know that flour is on sale if you already happen to know that that Robin Hood bag is flour. My supervisor was also really fascinated by the ads, though apparently the yogurt with M&Ms has been brought back, and the very idea of that absolutely disgusted her. The shopping roleplay worked really well, too. It`s definitely a benefit to do this lesson while you have a classroom full of native English speakers. We could have done a similar activity with just the Japanese students, but I don`t think they would have gotten as much out of it, and they would have had to work with a much longer list of key phrases. So right now I look like the greatest teacher ever, and I barely had to do anything during the class. I`m cool with that.
Tomorrow we were supposed to have a field trip to Aoyama Plateau, but it`s been cancelled due to the weather (this might shock you, but it`s raining). But my classes are still cancelled because the first years had another trip that`s still going ahead (my trip was with the third years), and all of my classes on Friday are first year classes... So apparently there will be dodgeball tournaments or something in the gym that I can watch? Whatever. Lazy day for me!
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