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| School Cultural Festival (Oct, 2016) |
I teach in a Junior High School. There are three class levels, 1年生, 2年生, 3 年生(ichinensei, ninensei,
sannensei), split into four classes (one class per year level and a composite special
ed class for four students – のびのびor
“carefree”).
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| School Sports Day (Sept, 2016) |
At the most, I teach each of these classes once per
day. They get English four times a week,
so I have 16 hours, which also means there’s lots of downtime, especially since
I have to be at school from 8am – 4pm.
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| School Sports Day (Sept, 2016) |
What do I do during that time? Prepare for classes, create an “English board”
(a noticeboard with different English things e.g. Christmas), study Japanese
and write. I’ve got a few writing
projects on the go, including this one on teaching music.
Monday mornings and all day Fridays I teach at elementary
schools, so I have those classes to prepare for. I’ll talk about them in another post.
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| Helping me decorate the Christmas tree (Dec, 2016) |
The school day in JHS is:
8am everyone arrives
at school (most teachers have been here ages before this)
8:15 staff meeting
8:25 homeroom
8:40 classes start
(6 x 50 minute classes, 4 before lunch, and 2 after. Wednesdays there are only 5 periods.
12:30 lunch – trust me
– this’ll get its own post…
1:20 cleaning
(everyone cleans the school)
3:35 homeroom
3:45 school finishes
4pm compulsory club
activities
6pm students go home
(5pm in winter, or if it’s exam time, there are no clubs)
It’s a long day for the students. I get to leave at 4pm.
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| Karuta Competition (Jan, 2017) |
I usually do a warm-up game at the beginning of each
class. It’s usually a 10-minute game/activity
that may or may not focus on the grammar point being learned. For the rest of the class I check students’
work or read bits outs from the textbook as required.
For the のびのびclass
we usually play a game that takes about half the period. Current favourites include Guess Who?,
Battleships and Go Fish.
