lunch time w/ the first graders

I had lunch w/ the cute first graders today and it was the cutest thing ever.  First graders take forever eating lunch so the teacher puts up the time limit and kids have to try to finish eating within that time.  While eating, all the kids were giggling and staring at me so i gave them my funny face and they burst out laughing. I guess i didn’t help them eat any faster. 

But one of the boys turned to the homeroom teacher and said, “Sensei, i’m gonna turn on my engine.”  At first I was like…wah?  engine?  but right after he said this, he started to eat super fast. lol He continued for awhile…stopped…turned to the teacher again and said, “Sensei, I bit my tongue.” haha SO CUTE. 

I’m so thankful that I’m working in Japan and that I get to meet these precious students.

Talking about precious students, I ran into my ex-student today in the city.  I was walking w/ my friend, and some guy that looked like my ex-student was walking in front of me.  I kept staring at him to see if it was him, but thought I was mistaken and just kept talking to my friend.  But surely enough, after about 10 minutes of walking, he turns around and says, “HYEMI SENSEI” haha I asked him what he was doing, and he said he saw me at the train station and walked along with me for 10 minutes just to make sure that it was me so that he could say hi to me. How sweet is that?? He was gonna take the train home, but walked out of his way just to say hi….That really made my day. Normal highschoolers won’t do that….i don’t think….too cool for teachers. lol

Anyway, i’m so confused what to do next year! T__T I thought i wanted to go home…..but days like this really make me wanna stay. SIGH. Pray for me?

お年玉 Otoshidama

 

In Japan, for New Year’s, children receive money from their parents and grandparents in a fancy envelope.  This is called Otoshidama. 

 

During class today, the topic was “What do you do on New Year’s Day,” and most kids answered that they get “Otoshidama.”  So then, my teacher asked the kids how much they usually get every year, and the average was over 20,000 yen, which is roughly $230!  WHA. haha

For Christmas, I used to be happy if I got $20 from my parents…..

These kids…so rich.  One kid told me she got around 100,000 yen last year……….that’s over $1000 dollars.  And most of these kids save their “Otoshidama.” So then my teacher asked them how much they have saved up, and some kids said they have more than $1000 in their savings.  That’s wayy more than what I had in middle school. I definitely never saved up the money I got for Christmas. 

Anyone wanna give me Otoshidama this New Year’s? =D

 

 

世の中は銭や！

The other day, PE teacher at my junior high taught me this phrase, “世の中は銭や!”  It means this world is all about money.  He told me to say it in a Yakuza-like (gang) voice. 

So then I turned around to my vice-principal and said it and all the teachers around me started laughing.  One teacher yelled at the PE teacher for teaching me this phrase. lol

The PE teacher said it’s not a good thing to say. I guess he just wanted to teach me some bad Japanese. haha

I forgot the phrase this morning and asked the PE teacher again, and he refused to say it…after asking a couple times, he finally gave in and said, “世の中は銭や! (yononakawa zeniya!)” being all gangster-like. 

I guess b/c teachers are always busy at school, i’m thankful whenever i can laugh and talk with them for once.  So yeah, this phrase, even though it’s bad, will be something i will be saying to teachers time to time at work and make them laugh….but then again, if i say it too often, the magic will wear out and they’re gonna think i’m a weird gangster-wannabe foreigner. =D

Apples to Apples

Today when I got to the junior high, i found out that my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) was absent for the day.

The other Japanese teachers asked me if I can handle all the classes alone and i happily said YES.

I just love being in full charge of the classroom. so I quickly thought of the lesson plans…

First period was the 2nd years and they’ve been learning how to give directions, so I wrote place names in Kochi that the students are familiar with (like Mister Donut, Fuji Grand, Aeon, Big Echo) and had them guide their partners to at least 3 places they wanted to go, using the phrases they learned.

After finishing the lesson, I had all of them do the “Burikko” pose. =D  Burikko refers to girls that act cute/dumb like the valley girls.  They all laughed and walked out of class smiling. heee

For 3rd years, we played “Apples to Apples” game—I put up an adjective on the board and had the kids pick one vocab that is related to the adjective.  One word I put up was “annoying” and some funny answers i got were “my best friend” and “my family.” lol  The next word I put up was “crazy” and one response I got was “China”…..very rude answer, but kind of explains the whole international relation problem that’s been happening here recently. 

For 1st years, I had kids pick random picture of a person from the magazines and come up with their own story as if they’re going to introduce that person to the whole class.  They were giggling and laughing, trying to think of funny names for the person and their likes and hobbies.

So all in all, I had so much fun at work–feeling productive and actually doing something, rather than just standing around in the classroom poking at students. Only if I could actually have my own classroom regularly at the junior high….i would be tho happy. 

 

(’cause i’m an ALT–Assistant Language Teacher–i never have full control over the classroom….i do what the main English teacher tells me to do.)

ANYWAY, so thankful that God gave me quick ideas for the lessons in the morning. =)

Teaching Korean

i really enjoy teaching especially when the students are super focused and are eager to learn more.

Today, some of the 4th graders came up to me and asked me to write “Hangul” –the Korean alphabet so i wrote out all the alphabets and one of the rowdiest kids came up to me and asked me to write it for him too.  After i wrote out some examples, I told him to try writing them all out on his own, and he was so into it!  This kid, who always says nasty things at me to get my attention and likes running around the hallway during break time, sat through the whole lunch recess writing Korean alphabets! haha

He then grabbed my hand and told me to teach him the pronunciations next week.  =)

 

WHY ARE THESE KIDS SO CUTE. gah. 

basketball club boys

i had a lot of free time after the classes were over so i went to the gym and watched the basketball club boys practice.  the coach teacher had parent-teacher conference so they were all just goofing around and shooting the basket. i decided to join and tried couple shots.  and one of the 3rd year boys challenged me to one-on-one game~  uh i can shoot when no one’s blocking me, but when someone is waving their arms in front of me, i cannot even aim at the basket. haha

but while doing one-on-one, other boys helped me by blocking the other guy so i was able to make at least 3 points. =)

it was so cute that the other kids were helping meee. they seem to be always against me during class by giving me the -__- face, but now i know, deep down, they care about me! 😉

maybe b/c the coach teacher wasn’t there, i just had soo much fun playing w/ them.  hope i can do this again sometime sooon!!

 

the best part of the day was though, my ex-students (now 2nd year in high school) came to the school for a visit and they all matured so much~  they were actually willing to take pictures w/ me…2 years ago, on their graduation, i begged them to take a picture w/ me, but they said no….but today, they were making the peace sign and even smiled at me. whoa. those boys. they softy inside. haha

SO thankful for a wonderful day at work!! even though it was Sunday..T__T

yeah, Japanese schools have class on Sundays sometimes! crazy right?  It was like parents-come-watch-their-kids-studying-hardy day.

 

At least i get monday offfffff. fighto!!

What

I taught a Halloween lesson for the 3rd graders today. They are so cute.

When I do gestures for the vocabs, other grades don`t react as well as these kids.

3rd graders go all out in doing gestures….Since it was the Halloween lesson, I taught vocabs like `monster` and they came up with the funniest facial expressions/gestures for the word.

At the end of the lesson, I was explaining to kids in English that they are going to get a piece of orange paper and draw their own Jack-O-Lantern. Because these kids are only 3rd graders, they have VERY limited English. So when I was saying, `please get this orange paper and draw your own Jack-O-Lantern. You can draw any shape for the eyes and the mouth,` I`m sure to them it was just `blah blah blah orange blah blah eyes blah mouth.` Since they couldn`t understand, they kept saying in Japanese `I don`t understand….Sensei, what is she saying??` and the Japanese teacher said, `Try saying that in English.` The teacher wanted the kid to say, `Once more please,` cause that’s the phrase we learned…..but the kid just looked at me and said, `……WHAT?`

I was just surprised that he knew the word `what` and it just fit right into the conversation….

But after the class, when I tried to talk to them in English, they just repeated `WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT` -___-

Anyway, I love it when kids try to use English….for example, in junior high school, I sometimes overhear kids saying the text book conversation they memorized for the class presentation to each other. `What do you like?` `I like music. I`m a rock fan.` `Are you a rock fan?` lol

And the other day, we had to prep for the culture festival and kids had to get out chairs for the visitors….and they said to each other when I walked by, `How many chairs???` So I said, `About 500,` and they all shook their head and said, `Nonono, about 200.`

Cuties. =)

Shogi

Today i learned how to play Shogi from my students.
It’s very similar to chess. The game ends when you take the opponent’s “king” piece.
One thing that’s different from chess is that once you take your opponent’s piece, you can make it your own piece by putting it back on the board whenever you need it.

First time we played, the student didn’t use two of his important pieces to go easy on me…so i won.
Second time around, he played for real and i still won. mehehe

i might be smart after all. lol

Tomorrow is the Culture Festival. Kinda excited to see all the students’ art works….but not so excited about having to sing on the stage w/ all the teachers….i don’t even know the song we’re gonna sing….i guess i’ll have to resort to what i did last year…kuchibaku! (lip syncing) =)

Cute story

During the cleaning time today, i eavesdropped on a conversation between a 6th grader and a 1st grader. it was the cutest thing ever.

it might not sound as cute in English…but it was so funny/cute in Japanese. haha

6th grader to 1st grader: あのさ、サンタさんっておらんで～

You know, there’s no Santa.

1st grader: へ？？？サンタさんおらんが？？？

What?  There’s no Santa??

6th grader：そう。

Nope.

1st grader：へ？？サンタさん死んだが？？　ヘミ先生～サンタさんおらんやって！！本当？？

What?  Did Santa die?? Ms. Hyemi!! He says there’s no Santa! Is this true?

I just pretended to not hear it….and proceded to broom away. haha

But that 1st grader sure had a revelation of his life…’cause all the other 6th graders swarmed over him and was confirming the fact that Santa doesn’t exist.

 

i’m a gaikokujin

quick post before i forget.

today was a somewhat eventful day in terms of interesting convo.

-i ate lunch w/ the first graders today and one of the girls started stroking my hair and told me that i’m a gaikokujin (foreigner) b/c my hair color is brown. LOL!  umm first graders must not know about hair dyeing. then i kept insisting that i have black hair just like them. but they compared their hair color right next to my dyed hair and said…”see? you are def gaikokujin b/c you don’ t have black hair like us.”  they are so cute.

 

-one of the 4th grader walked by me and spoke under his breath, “Takeshima belongs to Japan.”

I was like..uh where is this coming from? then his friend came up and asked me what I think about Takeshima and whether i think it belongs to Korea or Japan….and about all the other island disputes plus the American military dispute. the kid knows so much for a 4th grader. i don’ t even keep up w/ these news. haha

so then i tried to give them different point of view…how Koreans think it’s theirs b/c it has documents from loong ago that it once belonged to Korea. and how Koreans think it’s theirs and Japanese think it’s theirs…so who’s rightt?  then he tried to come up w/ rebuttal…like..”what if the law had changed?” i secretly think it does belong to Korea (perhaps cause i was once taught in elementary school in Korea that Dokdo (takeshima) is a Korean island).  but i try not to say it in front of kids but just give them different point of view.
and while walking by, the kid grabs the school nurse and says, “Ms. Hyemi keeps insisting that Takeshima belongs to Korea.” -__-  Thanks kid…for putting words in my mouth. i never insisted outright. dah. i hope the school nurse doesn’t take offense.

 

-but to end my day happily, i went to discuss about the korean class i’ll be teaching starting tomorrow…and one of the ladies who helped me organize this class told me that i look like this one actress in Japan who just got married to the leader of  Exile. of course i had no idea what she looks like…so i came home and googled. i don’t think i look like her at all….but she’s pretty so i take that as a compliment. haha or maybe she needs new glasses. haha

Finally, forget about the previous post about doing things like vlog. it’s not gonna happen. i too busy! T__T

or lazy? haha

 

pray that my first korean lesson will go well tomorrow!!!! kinda nervous and excited at the same time. =)