Pool Time

On Monday I had no classes, so instead of going to school I spent the day at the office planning, among other things, my last lesson of the semester. While it wasn’t an amazing feat of creativity by any stretch, it was cool because I managed to convince the teacher I was working with to move the class from the classroom to the pool. I figured it’s hot as balls to begin with and there’s no AC in the classroom, so might as well use the towel I routinely drape around my neck for something other than mopping up sweat. At first we just joked about it cuz of the heat, but the more it was brought up, the more reasonable it seemed until the 5th grade homeroom teacher was like “dude, let’s just do English class in the pool for real!”

For the 5th graders, this was joyous news. We were studying “I like~”, which is flexible enough to mold any kind of lesson plan around. For the 6th graders, this wasn’t so good, because we were studying months and days, which don’t really have any applicable water activities (i.e. if you’re birthday’s in January, splash the person next to you). Don’t know how cool my bosses at the BOE would have been with me doing my class in the pool, but I just didn’t mention it and no one was the wiser...except maybe when I came back to the office soaked. But that might have been attributed to sweat.

So on Tuesday, we marched out to the sparkling blue water in the 35 degree afternoon with swimsuits and figurative language caps on and proceeded to do ball-passing warm-up games and some conversation relay races. This particular group of 5th graders is energetic and motivated, but try as they might, they just don’t have a knack for studying or sitting down and absorbing info, so I’ve quickly learned that if I want my English classes to have any effect, they’d better be packed full of hands-on activities, sporty-type games, and fierce group competition. It came as no surprise, then, that some of the most fluid sentences I’ve ever heard from this bunch came when they’d just done two laps of the swimming pool and asked their partner whether or not they like Nintendo DS. It was a fun class, but I ended up getting to the next class a little late, and, unbeknownst to the students, I taught in my swim trunks heehee.

On the same day at one of my other schools, I entered the pool for a second time, this time because I was invited during my free period to experience a Japanese elementary school swimming class. So I joined the students for stretches beside the brand new pool, which is located on the roof of the school overlooking a beautiful lake. It was definitely better than sipping coffee in the teacher’s room. We did some paddling practice and laps of the pool and kicking with a foam board, which brought back memories of learning to swim as a kid in NZ. I don’t know about American or Canadian schools, but apparently all public schools in Japan have their own pool and instead of P.E. in the gym, kids are taught to swim a couple of times a week once the weather is hot enough.

We all learned some lessons that day:
-When I removed my shirt to hop in the pool, my kids learned firsthand where the ‘white’ in ‘white people’ comes from.
-I rediscovered the joys of giggling and splashing in the water, and that paddling several lengths of a pool is way more tiring than kids make it look.

Flipping out

It’s been a while, so here’s an update.

To our sudden dismay, 1st term clas

ses abruptly finished up yesterday, so in an effort to prolong the beginning of what can only be described as tortuous boredom in the Board of Education office, the Kaga English teachers signed up for the Daishoiji High School International Day. We were basically asked to prepare a hands-on lesson on something related to the culture of our home countries, in this case mine being Canada. Not being able to think past the maple syrup stereotype, I ended up teaching a pancake cooking class to some of my friend Daniel’s high school first graders.

The day before I went out and bought a couple tons of baking flour, maple syrup, milk, eggs and maple syrup, which I hadn’t counted on carrying to Daniel’s school at 8 in the morning in 30 degree heat. In any case, we got where we needed to be and started setting up. Several of my graduated junior high schoolers were in the ranks of the students attending the cultural event, including several kids who I remember having pretty decent English ability last year.
After heartfelt reunions were done, there was a brief opening ceremony, followed by my first cooking class. I had originally intended to do a test run the night before at home, but didn’t get around to it, so I instead demonstrated to the students with no practice, which I don’t think anyone noticed cuz by some miracle I made absolutely beautiful crepes on the first go—from raw ingredients to edible in 5 minutes. It was sweet. The students did just as well, and we all did our best to share ingredients and encourage one another using the wonderful medium of English. Some students in the second class tried flipping pancakes too, which was really successful. I probably would’ve thrown them into a wall or something, so I didn’t try.

Surprisingly, I only got to eat like half a pancake, while the students stuffed themselves with their bountiful batter. The great thing about pancakes is that you can’t really mess it up. Even the kids who seemed inept ended up with a pretty tasty end result. In the following closing ceremony, the group leaders and class leader thanked us and we were done, but all in all it was great to work with high schoolers for the first time. They were responsive, mature, and understood English enough to make pancakes. What more could you ask for?