Wednesday, September 24--Getting the Ball Rolling

Well, folks are not beating down my door for English lessons, but I have picked up my first groups of students from a Navy wife who is leaving next month. I went with her to the lessons this afternoon, to meet the students and to get a feel for how she teaches. The two groups meet back to back--each one for thirty minutes, two times a month.

The Kitty Cat group has five students, aged three to six. The girls are all very sweet and cute, and the one boy is the class clown. They are learning shapes, colors, and numbers. Unfortunately, they don’t know enough English to follow directions for activities and games, so one of the mothers has to translate everything into Japanese. Basically, this seems to be a “repeat what I say” class, with little comprehension--due to the ages of the kids. They are still learning Japanese at this age (just like American preschoolers are learning English), so anything extra they can pick up in English is pretty amazing to me. It’ll be interesting to see how far I can take this group.

The Kite group is made up of 3 older boys, aged seven to eleven. They are typical, energetic boys, and it will be a challenge to keep their interest. It was hard to gauge exactly what their English level was. They definitely had a larger vocabulary than the younger group, but spent most of their time talking amongst themselves in Japanese. Today’s lesson was not a normal lesson, because it was the last day for the teacher they’d had for nearly two years—they played a game, had cupcakes, and exchanged gifts. I’ll get a better feel for things next time I see them—would like to challenge them to not use any Japanese for the thirty minutes they are with me, but they may not be ready for that.

Even though this was only an hour of teaching, I was pretty well worn out by the end. Guess summer break was too long, and I forgot how much energy is required to keep up with kids! These may be the only two children’s groups I take on…we’ll see how I do with adults. Tomorrow I am scheduled to go with a friend to a Japanese military school to sit in on her class. She teaches English conversation class to officers. If I enjoy it, I can sign up to be a substitute there. Stay tuned…