The Audience

Open day is a day for parents to come and observe classes at any time throughout the day should they wish to. Bato had their open day a while ago and it was pretty standard really as not many parents are all that keen on seeing the classes because let's face it - if the classes are shit what are they going to do about it?

I wasn't scheduled to be at Ogawa for their open day but they wanted me there so they organised a swapping of days and so this morning I walked into the staff room to a slightly busier than normal crawl. So while teachers were doing important things I whipped up some flashcards of places so the third year students could learn the uses of once, twice etc. (eg. I have been to Kyoto 3 times). I introduced it to the students who have already learnt how to use 'have' with a past tensed verb so it was essentially tacking on something at the end. I didn't really think it would be overly hard and it wasn't. I was right. Yey.

I could go into the adventures of the first graders but it pretty much consisted of me saying
'I have a ball in my bag.
This is the ball.
I like football very much.
I often play it.'
Over and over again with the students repeating over and over again. I had to pronounce 'often' as 'offen' which isn't my natural tendency but it wasn't too tricky. Unlike saying 'learned' instead of 'learnt' which involves me changing my accent a little to get that r sound in. I hope I don't sound like a dick when I return.

I had to do a lot of correcting for the aforementioned exercises and it was refreshing to see the third years writing something new and interesting. The first years are really just learning nouns other than sports so they were still pretty boron. I tend to over-circle answers when the students do well which renders the paper unreadable for future revision but I think they appreciate it. They don't care what I write but they like the colours and watching me as I join my letters together.

I kind of do too... only a little.