Sensei and Sensibility
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Merry Christmas!
Well, I am back in Canada, slowly working my way down my mom's annual list of chores, and ....
TOMORROW's CHRISTMAS!!!!!!
Yes, being of German descent, we celebrate on Christmas Eve! So, happy holidays everyone, and happy New Year!
My resolution: to get to computers at work back up and running so that I can post more ( I am at the Chapters Web Cafe now!). Their wee little 3-day upgrade and installation process at work has taken about 3 weeks now - it better be up when I get back!!! ;)
May everyone ring in the new year happy and healthy, and may this continue for 2004 (the year of the monkey!)
yoi otoshi wo mukaete kudasai!
meeri kurisutomasu!!!
;)
 Sabine . 7:05 PM . Comments
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Baby Eikaiwa!
Phew! That`s over!!!
So, it turns out that I was actually the "hired clown" at a Children`s Christmas party. As such, the pressure was off - the parents and kids were there for the party, and not just for me. As such, no one expected to learn any English - phew!!! There were so many babies there - they couldn`t even say "mama" yet!!!
So, basically, I started class with a crawling race. I was dressed as Santa and we all lined up (more or less) and crawled along the floor to the finish line. Then I gave out cookies, while the kids stared at me, touched me, and 2 cried.
Then I taught the 3 year olds to say "Merry Christmas" and I sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - whenever we said Merry Christmas I pointed to the kids so that they sang that part with me. Then a rousing round of "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" - I had to change activities quickly because these little people have little attention spans. Then I gave out more cookies (that was by far the most effective activity, so when the energy dropped, I fed them sugar!), and then I did "High 5`s " with them all and left.
Actually, I met one woman who had just moved to Ikuno from Oregon, where her husband was working for a few years. So we got to talk a bit, and now I have all these young mothers smiling at me in the grocery store. I am not some random foreigner anymore to them, I am "Sabine, the cookie girl"
But I think I`ve pretty much exhausted my collection of Baby English activities (youngest member there was 6 months - average age I`d put at 18 months), and so I think that I will politely decline any more baby English lessons.
However, I am willing to do finger painting or that kind of thing with the kids :)
Sabine
Sabine . 4:18 PM . Comments
Monday, December 08, 2003
Oh my Goodness!
....I just received the numbers for tomorrow`s baby English Conversation class... there will be 40 babies, 30 parents, and me.
That`s it. ACK !!!!! What are these mom`s thinking? Unless of course they just wanted a free clown for a while. But then again, aren`t clowns scary for little kids??!
Oh no.
Wish me luck everyone, though I think that this will be a first and last for me!
:(
Sabine
Sabine . 9:46 PM . Comments
The Usual Suspects
Today there was a big meeting. "The students MUST be disciplined!" was the cry that echoed through the hallways.
Now, the teachers are in their classes, giving the students a ver stern talking to.
The offence?
I walked into the teachers` room after cleaning time, to find one teacher holding what appeared to be a contact lens on the tip of her finger. So I enquired, "Did your contact fall out?"
She replied, "No," and then proceeded to say something in Japanese that I didn`t quite catch. The only word I got was the ominous, "Library". She was still holding the invisible object on the tip of her finger.
"You found a small bug in the library?!" I prodded. She solemnly shook her head and walked closer to me. On the tip of her finger was a tiny brown speck.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A cookie crumb," she replied, " It was found on a table in the library."
At which point the other teachers started to storm in and one of them made an announcement and they put the crumb on a kleenex and are holding some sort of a disciplinary meeting in the gym now or something.
I dunno. Sometimes I wonder. Does all this discipline help? This year, they are being more strict than ever, and the result is that the kids are behaving worse than before.
Here, it can sometimes be all or nothing - there is no moderation.
But sometimes, when kids are only told how bad they are over and over, they stop trying to be good.
Then, I get to read news reports like, "Child Murders an Old Man " and I read further to find that the child in question was 19 years and 6 months old. ...
And in other news, I wrote the Japanese Proficiency exam (level three, movin`up in the world!) on Sunday, after a week of cramming as much as I could into my tired old brain. Note to self: start to study earlier than the week before next time.
The Kanji section was hard - they definitely put some kanji on there (like half or more) that wasn`t on the study list. The vocab section wasn`t that bad - I was expecting for that to be my worst but I don`t think it was. The listening section was far too easy, but would be difficult if I were a student of Japanese outside of Japan. The Grammar section, well, I thought that I did OK, but then I always do think I chose the right particles and such, only to find out that I was wrong, so... The reading was quite surprisingly, easy. So, I don`t think I did that well on the Kanji, on the Grammar and Vocab sections, I think I might have squeaked by, I did well on the reading section and listening section.
Since the sections are weighted differently, I may or may not have passed - I won`t know until the end of February or so, in any case.
However, there was so much blatant cheating there!!! I didn`t notice it last year, but then again, the 4th level is a lot easier, so there`s no real need to cheat. People were opening test books early, talking about their answers - it was all quite strange. And the etiquette was horrible! Cellphones going off, people dropping plastic bags of snacks during the listening test - really, quite appalling! I wonder if test taking methods and behaviours can differ so greatly between different cultures???
Oh well, we`ll see if I passed or not in March. I know that I don`t deserve to pass - not with only a week`s worth of studying. But who knows, maybe that was my lucky day?!
Will keep you posted!
:)
Sabine
Sabine . 9:03 PM . Comments
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