The "New" School Year

Hisashiburi (it's been a while), sorry about that!  Since school officially restarted on April 9th for most of my schools I can't really say that it's a "new" school year anymore.  But I still wanted to mention some of the differences between this year and last year that I've noticed so far.  I'd say that my favorite difference has been that I get to teach one of the special education classes at the middle school (and basically run it however I want).  My least-favorite difference is that one of my other new classes has some troublemakers in it and so there have been issues with discipline.

The elementary schools and middle school also have new editions of their textbooks this year.  I like the elementary one, "Hi, friends!" a little better than "Eigo Noto" so far (since the title is actually English this time around) but I still wish that they included more videos with their computer CD.  There are more videos than in the previous edition but it still relies heavily on plain audio, so students can't see the body language of the speakers.  I approve of most of the changes made to the middle school textbook series, "New Horizon" but I wish that it didn't focus so much on reading activities.  I like the fact that the text's rewrite of the short story "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages" is no longer required reading for the third-year students and is located in the extra-reading section at the end of the book instead.  I mean, come on, that story is boring and depressing!  Also, when answering questions about the story should we consider Freddie to be a "he", or an "it"?  Not cool New Horizon!

I mentioned in a previous post that some of the teachers changed schools, and in the elementary schools they took it a step further; teachers who stayed at the same school often changed teaching-grades.  At Shiroharu Elementary for example, the two fifth grade teachers I worked with last year became a third and a fourth grade teacher, respectively.  Other apparently random shuffling occurred at all of my elementary schools.  Luckily the middle school teachers are more specialized so that can't happen with them.  The new English teacher at the middle school is a young woman whom I will call Risa-sensei.  She's actually a year younger than I am and she is very sweet but I think that some of the students can sense that and have been taking advantage of it.  So, in one particular first-year class (US seventh graders) there are a couple of boys who have been making trouble.  One boy refuses to participate in any activity and mostly sleeps during class.  Another boy is actively disruptive and will often stand up, walk around the room, and poke his neighbors during class.  From what I've heard, the first boy acts the same way in every class and it may be related to trauma from the tsunami.  The second boy only acts out in classes with inexperienced teachers so he's probably just seeking attention when he knows he can get away with it.  I'm a little unsure about how to deal with them since I'm just the assistant teacher in the situation.  I guess I'll have more updates in the posts to come.

Anyway, as I said, one of the better things about the new year has been the special education class that I usually go to once a week.  The class has only one student in it and she's very bright but has some difficulty hearing and speaking.  Since I have control over the classwork while I'm there I've been teaching the student phonics starting with consonants.  I think it's pretty much the same way that I was taught how to read (at least I remember one of the first weeks of first grade learning that M stands for mmmmm - the sound you make when eating ice cream).  Luckily the student has a great memory, so I've been having a fun time teaching her the new sounds and words.  It helps that her homeroom teacher, who is there during the English lessons, is very nice and has a great sense of humor.

In other news, I feel like somewhat of a rock-star at Michiue and Hayai Elementary since the new first graders mob me every time I walk past their classrooms and ask for my "sign" (aka autograph).  They think that my script signature is cool, then they usually ask me to "write it in English" below.  They think I'm joking when I say that the script is in English.

Next time I'll probably write about how my New England accent was affecting me in class the other day, among other things.  Darn you, "caught" and "cot"!!!