New Year’s Resolutions
Part of my job at Gifu Kita is teaching American culture in addition to the English language. Sometimes I am asked to do lessons on American holidays and traditions. Since the New Year was coming up, we did a really fun lesson comparing American New Year traditions to Japanese traditions. It was actually quite interesting and fun for me to learn more about how my students celebrate.
Turns out, both cultures create resolutions or hopes and wishes for the New Year. So, as a final writing exercise at the end of the class, students had to tell me about their resolution in English.
This was a good activity for them because they had already given some thought to this before I asked them to write. Also, I enjoyed the process of reading and responding to each one. It gave me a lot of insight into the experiences of my students – what they are concerned about and what they hope for.
I thought I would share a few of them with you.
I also try to create resolutions for myself each year. These aren’t usually the typical resolutions – ones where you either do it or don’t. My resolutions tend to be more of the what I would like to try to do variety, things I would like to improve upon. This year I would like to: