Fridays....rock!

Well, today was a busy day at the elementary school. I had a full day but split between 2 schools. I taught 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade at one school and 2 5th grade classes at a different school in the afternoon.

So to say that I'm tired right now is an understatement! Haha, but at least the day's over with and I can get my weekend started! Well, today I did the alphabet with the 3rd and 4th grade at the first school. The 3rd grade teacher there is a nice lady, but at first glance she looks like your typical school teacher. Rigid, tough, a little older, and the type that will give commands and isn't afraid to say what's on her mind. She also has the glasses with the string things on them so they hang around her neck when she doesn't have them on her face. So at first, she was a little intimidating when I met her about 1 month ago. However, she talks to me and said that she's good friends with two people that are in my Eikaiwa class. And so she has been friendly to me because of that connection.

And actually, she gave me a very flattering compliment today. After class, she asked me where I learned to teach for JET. I told her, that actually, no teaching experience is required to teach for JET and that the only official "training" I got was a few seminars when we first arrived to Japan. These seminars are very high level and don't give you much guidance on the actual teaching aspect and the details of how a lesson should be run. Well, the 3rd grade teacher basically told me that she thought I was a great teacher and that her students had a lot of fun. She also mentioned that she thinks the way I ran the class is good because since the students were having fun, it was a great experience but at the same time they were learning. She thinks that this is very important...something that I agree with!:)

Well, I was very happy when she told me this and it made my day! As well, I had good conversation with the vice principal while I was in the office. He's pretty decent at basic conversation and I think he likes to talk to me so he can practice his English. I was asking him about all sorts of places in Japan to go visit and he was telling me about many different places. Although he's never been to an English speaking country, I would rate his conversational English at a fairly high level compared to most people I've talked to that can speak English. He's pretty good!

And the afternoon was filled with other classes and of course....BINGO! Haha, well the day finished up and I'm glad to be back and done! Now time to enjoy the weekend!