Thursday, February 6, 2003

What I did today Today, I... Went to Akizuki Elementary School; Got a very odd phone call from a haiku society in Hiroshima, asking (almost demanding) I participate; Went to Kirikushi Elementary School; Took the fifth lesson of the Elementary English course (where we looked at locations and positions); Went to Romantei with Wendy.

Today is fifty years to the day since Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II became Monarch. Irrespective of the Jubilee Celebrations last year, this is surely an occasion worthy of commemoration. Didn't see anything on the BBC website (or, for that matter, in the Electronic Telegraph), though... It's a shame that 'patriotism' seems to be such a dirty word these days.

In the morning, I went to Akizuki Elementary School, for two lessons (with the first- and second-years, and with the third- and fourth-years) of practicing for the play. I have to say that I was quite pleasantly surprised at the lower years' progress, although whose English they'd been listening to, I shudder to think. Their pronunciation wasn't bad (although when the teacher can't pronounce 'glove' herself, there's not much chance that the children will be able to either), but the intonation was, well, let's just say it took a supreme effort of will not to collapse into laughter. Nevertheless, for the first time since we've been doing plays at this school, I'm reasonably confident that the children will be ready in time for the performance. The third- and fourth-years, too, weren't bad at all, although they hadn't learned their lines as well as the firsts and seconds. They also didn't seem to have made much progress on the gesture front, with the fourths trailing well behind the thirds. I know that the children are a big factor in how well things progress- this goes without saying, really, since it is the children who are performing- but the more I see, the more I am convinced that the attitude of the teacher plays a much greater part than is often assumed. For example, it would be natural to assume that the fourths would be better than the thirds; that the reverse was true is- I know- because the third year teacher has had her children practice more than the fourth-year teacher has done. It's fine to tell the children to learn their lines, but they need to be drilled in class too. Nevertheless, I don't think there'll be any problems on the day (or, at least, as many problems as normal). It does strike me, though, that the fourths seem completely disinterested- they're doing this because they have to, not because they want to. It seems at this school that every year deteriorates (in terms of behaviour, enthusiasm, etc.) as they progress through the school. I wonder why?

Phone call

In the afternoon, I went to Kirikushi Elementary School for two lessons, with the seconds and fifths. For these two years, this was the first and last of my lessons this term. With the seconds, we played colour bingo, which went well- I never fail to be surprised at just how excited Japanese children (and adults, for that matter) will become over a game of bingo. The second years aren't a bad class at all- they're always lively and interested, and they get stuck into whatever I decide to do. With the fifths, meanwhile, I commandeered the gym for a couple of games (if they teacher has no requests for the lesson, I don't see anything wrong in introducing non-Japanese games. At elementary school level, games and playing are probably the form of 'internationalisation' (how I dislike that word!) that the children can relate to, and therefore will remember, the most. Anyway, we played 'Cat, cat, dog' to start with. As I'd expected, the children mastered this easily (if kindergarten children can cope with it, then fifths years certainly should be able to), apart from one girl who insisted on saying 'katsu' instead of 'cat'. It was a real battle of wills- there was no way I was backing down, and there was equally no way she was going to come round to saying 'cat' properly- and I came very close to losing my temper. In the end, though, she managed it, and the game progressed relatively enjoyably. 'Cat, cat, dog', though, is a game that really benefits from large numbers, and this group is small, so it didn't fire the children's enthusiasm as much as it might have done. Also, there are only four boys in the class (as opposed to eight girls, I think), but they're very genki, while the girls are very quiet, so the boys tended to choose each other and turn the game into a sort of personal game of tag, while the girls didn't really get chance to join in that much (and even when they did, they made no effort to beat the person racing against them). Therefore, I called an end to 'Cat, cat, dog' after about fifteen minutes, and explained 'Red light, green light' to the children. They were much more enthusiastic about this game, and it went well- quite hilariously, in fact. The girls were excellent at keeping still even when I put my face right in front of theirs and pulled faces, but the boys tended to run forward, which meant that they couldn't stop quickly enough to be out, and in addition even when they did stop they did so with all sorts of over-the-top gestures, which meant that they either moved or fell over. Also, I only had to start to walk in their direction for them to burst into guffaws. The boys realised fairly quickly that it was more fun to fall over every time than to play the game properly, which should have led me to tell them to take the lesson a little more seriously, I suppose, but they were so amusing both the Japanese teacher and I couldn't help laughing. After a while, though, they got tired of the girls winning every time, and started to take things a little more seriously. Just as the bell for the end of the lesson rang...

J-List Prefectures in Shikoku Tokushima Kagawa Ehime Kochi