hey all,
I taught at one of my two favorite schools today, but they changed things up on me. Usually at my elementary schools, they either have a pre-existing lesson plan they want me to follow, or they let me basically do the lesson myself. As long as I cover the appropriate subject, nobody really cares too much.
Today, for three of my four classes, I almost did nothing. I came to class, did opening and closing greetings, and helped with pronunciation, helped keep the kids focused by directing their attention to the Japanese teacher, etc. But my actual teaching time (versus assistant teacher time) was limited to the one class. I've been told that this school is planning on increasing the number of English classes from about 30 to 45 next year, but they don't plan on bringing in foreign teachers for more days. I guess that would drive the budget too high, or something. So instead, these classes were something like practice sessions for the homeroom teachers to teach English.
Overall, the three classes lead by the Japanese teachers all went pretty smoothly. The only problems were poor English pronunciation, some incorrect grammar, and some times being unable to hear the teacher's voice; but really, I'm sure I do some really bad mispronunciations in Japanese, and sometimes talk to quickly or quietly for the students. My big problem is that I decided last year that I wanted to work at elementary schools because at junior high schools I didn't really do anything. And now this school has turned the tables and made me into an assistant again. I guess I should be happy, because I still get paid the same, but now have even less work to do, but still.
Anyway, I'm not sure what my plans are for the weekend. Michi is getting a tooth checked on at the dentist, so I might be staying home Saturday, and maybe we'll go to a library on Sunday again.
My shoulder seems like it is slowly getting better, but I still don't have confidence in doing a big rock climbing trip near the end of this month.
Cheers,
