I paid my penultimate visit of the term to Koyo Elementary School today. The term feels like it's only just started, but with the short length of the term, and the fact that from the beginning of March the schools are busy with graduations and the preparations for the end of the school year means that I only have a few school visits.
Anyway, the first lesson was with the third- and fourth-years, and, continuing with the preparations for making a CD, we did another song. Following on from 'London Bridge' last time, we did 'Ten Green Bottles', which I think the children found relatively easy. I did notice, though, that the third-years were noticeably better than the fourth-years. While singing, we played the 'game' where one person has to 'fall down' each time, which the children enjoyed (remarkably so, given its simplicity). At the end of the lesson, there was time for a quick practice of 'London Bridge', and the fact that the thirds had practiced while the fourths hadn't was really obvious.
At Koyo, I normally eat lunch with one of the classes, but this means waiting until the children have got everything ready, which (especially with the lower years) can take ten or fifteen minutes. Because I had to rush off to Seinen-no-ie for the taiko broadcast, therefore, I ate with some of the teachers in the Headmaster's office, and then left so as not to be late for the uchiawase. I was actually quite gratifying that some of the sixths seemed disappointed I wasn't eating with them. Anyway, in the end, I got back to Koyo about five minutes before the first of my afternoon lessons began.
The first of these afternoon lessons was with the fifths, and we started by practicing 'Old MacDonald' a little more. Even in the first lesson the children weren't bad, but they seemed to have trouble with the animal noises, so we concentrated on those before singing the whole song. They're getting better, but the animal noises are going to need some more work. Anyway, the new song I'd chosen for the lesson was 'This old man', and the children did pretty well. I think the fact that they only had to learn four fairly simple lines had something to do with it, but nevertheless, we got through learning the whole song in the ten minutes or so it took the Japanese teacher to go off and copy the words I'd prepared (not that the children can read the English, of course...). It's always easy to tell how confident the children are about a song by the level of their voices; they are really quiet if they're unsure. The fifths had been pretty quiet with 'Old MacDonald', but with 'This old man', they were clearly more confident. At the end of the lesson, we even had time for a little game of 'The Grand Old Duke of York', where I sang, and the children had to stand on tiptoes whenever I said 'up', and crouch down whenever I said 'down'. The last line confused everybody nearly every time, but the children had great fun.
I really like this fifth-year class. I think they're probably the friendliest, most willing-to-interact class I teach. It's very easy to joke with the children, and they not only take the jokes, they play along with them. Today was especially good; first of all, Hanatani-kun added a long 'shi' sound onto the end of something he said, which was good for mimicking, and during the lesson, when it was his turn to make his animal noise (a dog's 'woof'), he did it in a really small voice. This prompted me to point at him and say 'dog' (as if I was expecting him to do the 'woof') every time the word came up in 'This old man' (which it does, of course, every verse). Also, somebody let it slip that Shimo-kun was learning English, so every time a new word came up in 'This old man' (again, every verse)- and at other times, for that matter- I asked him if he knew what it meant. At one stage he shouted, 'Shiru ka!' which means something along the lines of, 'how should I know?', and which had the class in hysterics (they're easily amused). From that point on, every time I asked him a word I should 'Shiru ka!' too, before he even had a chance to answer. I also started playing around with the words; because 'shiru' means both 'know' and 'soup', I asked him what sort of soup he wanted. There was also a girl who seemed to find my indicating the pitch of the words in the song by pointing up or down very amusing, so I had her laughing for nearly the whole forty-five minutes by accentuating these gestures into something approaching a wierd parody of a disco dancer. As I say, a great class to teach. I'd have them every day if I could; I hope they don't change when they become the top year in April.
The final lesson was with the sixths, who managed to make 'If you're happy and you know it' (which we practiced last time) sound like something that would be sung at a funeral. They were better than during the previous lesson, though! After the practice, I decided to try and get them to liven up a little by doing the same 'Grand Old Duke of York' game as with the fifths. It worked to an extent, but it was clear that these children weren't going to enjoy it as much as the younger class did. After this, I started to practice 'Auld Lang Syne'. I'd chosen this because the same tune is used for a Japanese song- 'Hotaru no hikari'- which is often played at graduation ceremonies (and, somewhat incongruously, when supermarkets or beer gardens close). I pointed out that 'Auld Lang Syne' was more a song about friendships continuing rather than a song marking the end of something, but it turned out that the song wasn't played at Koyo's graduation, so the significance of what I was saying was lost on most of the children.
Nevertheless, the children worked hard, and learned the song well. I'd assumed that they'd need to practice the last part with the Japanese teacher because we wouldn't manage the whole song during my lesson, but in fact they were so good that at the end of the lesson we had five minutes or so left over. I used this time to ask them about the graduation ceremonies in British schools, and eventually Hanaoka-kun guessed that we didn't in fact have them, which led on to a useful, if short, discussion of the British school system. This sixth-year class have stopped working as hard as they used to- when they were fifth-years, they were a superb class in the main- but even now, they're a fun group to teach. It's a little sad to think I'll only teach them once more.
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