This is my base school. I spend most of my week pottering around within these walls making myself look busy. My first lessons with every class were ‘self introduction classes’, where the students guessed from multiple choice on a powerpoint presentation as to whether I'm from Richmond or Birmingham, whether my favourite sport is football or croquet, and if my father is Sean Connery or Sven Goran Eriksson.
The language barrier (between me and the rest of the school, bar the two English teachers) can at times be akin to the Berlin wall, and like the Berlin wall, it is best brought down by slapstick comedy and funny voices. These students, particularly the older ones, are fairly typical of Japanese schools in that they are the quietest teenagers in the history of civilisation. To British teachers reading this, it might sound like heaven, but at times I may as well be teaching the present continuous tense to 30 comatose hedgehogs.
That said, there are enough characters amongst the younger years to make some lessons very entertaining, particularly when I’m given a bit of flexibility to teach British culture. The fact that most students now believe the British National Sport is Cheese Rolling and that every man in Scotland has a legal obligation to wear a kilt on Thursdays can only be for the best.
Still to come: primary schools, ‘the sock story’, and songs about floating faeces!
Phor phil news phlashes pheel phree to email!
The language barrier (between me and the rest of the school, bar the two English teachers) can at times be akin to the Berlin wall, and like the Berlin wall, it is best brought down by slapstick comedy and funny voices. These students, particularly the older ones, are fairly typical of Japanese schools in that they are the quietest teenagers in the history of civilisation. To British teachers reading this, it might sound like heaven, but at times I may as well be teaching the present continuous tense to 30 comatose hedgehogs.
That said, there are enough characters amongst the younger years to make some lessons very entertaining, particularly when I’m given a bit of flexibility to teach British culture. The fact that most students now believe the British National Sport is Cheese Rolling and that every man in Scotland has a legal obligation to wear a kilt on Thursdays can only be for the best.
Still to come: primary schools, ‘the sock story’, and songs about floating faeces!
Phor phil news phlashes pheel phree to email!
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