Vikings Lost

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10

I really do hate mornings.

Today was my first day teaching at Koko. I started by photocopying my hand-outs because I asked Mustache-sensei and he said I needed to. It wasn't until I was nearly done that Mama came in to the copy room, found me, and said she had already had Ottawa-sensei copy them. Ottawa-sensei is a new teacher and it is reflected in his poor copying skills.

We had class in the earth science room today because of the PowerPoint. I will say that I have no intentions of planning another computer-required lesson again. Dragging around a laptop and dealing with the projectors is a nightmare.

You already know what classes were like. Here's how they differed from Kogyo. First, the students were more evenly spit girls and boys. Everyone was much quieter. At Kogyo, they were chatty and had personality, but it's hard to teach when you can't make yourself be heard. At Koko, the students are quiet, but it's a struggle to get them to raise their hands at all.

Total, of the six classes I've now taught, only a single student has visited the United States.

For the America word association game, students did well, with words on par with Kogyo. One class had a massive amount of Katakana English, or English letters spelling katakana Japanese words. I had to actually tell a student that they had to write it in English, not katakana characters. “Tom [Cruiz],” “Ben and Jerry” and “Kennedy” all showed up, as did “Honolulu” and the usual “fast food.”

Bucky was pocketed once and was stripped of his red shirt (and dignity) multiple times. Poor little badger. Also, despite the fact that MARS is a popular manga in America, not a single one of my students has heard of it. This makes it much less effective and exciting.

In the second class of the day, Mama and I got the quiz to work successfully by finally making the directions specific enough. It worked again later with Mountain-sensei for the final period of the day. I have successfully managed to ask the question, “Katie's favorite football team is the Vikings. True or False?” in every class today. The students have this down! And I always manage to slip in some grossed-out face, tongue out, thumbs down antics to make it quite clear to the students what we think of the Vikings. They understand.

Ottawa-sensei has a Nano and speakers from the teacher he is replacing on sick leave. I got to borrow the speakers for my last class and was excited to play music to start the class but the speakers won't hold an iPod classic, so that didn't work. It makes me want to get speakers. I'll have to see if hard-off has any.

In the staff room, I revised my lesson plan for Koko's next lesson, sorted my papers and spent a good deal of time chatting with Mischievous-sensei. I ended up not leaving until 7pm. Mischievous-sensei said that I am entitled to come into work late if I work late, and I kind of brushed that off, but I may look into that. If I don't have class until second or third period, really, even if I could come in just one hour later, they'll have a MUCH more productive ALT.

I reheated sweet-glazed tofu and rice for dinner (and added a sauce.) It was tasty.

Rumor has it the Vikings lost. It's been a good day. And now, I am tired.