Live from Japan!

I am finding myself enjoying and appreciating my students more and more these past few weeks. Perhaps it is that all of my hard work is finally coming to fruition and the relationships I have worked so hard to build, the comfort I have tried to establish in my classroom is finally settling in. Perhaps it is that I know my time is limited. I only have about 3 more months to work. With vacations and holidays and exam periods, I will only be teaching my 1st year students 8 more times this school year. Seriously, that’s not much.

As a result of my increased enjoyment of my classroom, I think you are going to get to hear a lot more of the funny, random stuff that happens in my room. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Anyways, with my second year students we are just finishing a persuasive essay writing series. The third lesson in the series has them finishing their essays, they only need an extra 15 minutes or so. That means I had about 25 minutes at the end of class to fill with a bunch of students that are totally fried because they have worked so hard on their essays.

Well, I decided to fill the time with an activity that I learned at the latest Gifu Conference. It is a game that helps students to relax, practice their English, and, most importantly, realize that we all make mistakes.

I have the students names all in a hat. When I pull one of their names out I ask them if they can do something in English. For example, can you count to 20 in English in 15 seconds, can you sing a song in English? The students can say, “yes” or “no”, but if they say yes they must try it. If they complete the challenge successfully, they get a point for the students team. Once they are finished they get to ask me a challenge in Japanese, can you write dog in Kanji, can you write your address in Japanese? And I do the same as them, I try the challenge, I get a point for my team-of-one if I succeed.

Well, yesterday I had one particularly funny challenge. I called on a student and excitedly he stood up. Then I read him his challenge.

“Can you tell three things about Danielle in English?”

“Yes, I can,” he said.

“Okay, show me,” I replied.

“Number one, Danielle is a woman.”

“That’s true.”

“Number two, Danielle lives in America.”

“Really, are you sure?”

“Oh, sorry. Danielle lived in America.”

“That’s right.”

“Number three, Danielle is old.”

At about this point the entire class, including the Japanese teacher in the room with me, cracked up laughing. And the boy was loving it. I went over to him and asked him how old he thought I was. He told me he thought I was in my 30’s. Well, I corrected him and the class thought that was even funnier.

Later, after class. I went up to him and jokingly balked, “I’m old….harrrummmffff.” And after doing that, my Japanese teacher told him, “I think you are on Danielle’s blacklist.” He really isn’t, but I am glad that I know have this little joke with him that I can use for the rest of the year to make him smile.