After 7 months in Japan, you start to fall into a routine with your kids lessons - you know pretty much what you're kids will like and understand, and what will have them looking perplexed and on the verge of rebellion. But there's still a few surprises that can grab you.
For example today, my classroom is on the 1st floor of the school in Tajimi, and the kids went up ahead of me while I got some stuff together. When I joined them, I noticed the - what's the polite term? - more errant child in the class had gone in the classroom, shut the door, and was holding it closed with his feeble child strength. Kazumi - helpful and friendly staff member - was playing along with him and pretending that she couldn't get in, but she doesn't know the kid quite as well as I do, and before I could say "actually, he might lock the door in a second"....well, guess what happened?
Entreaties to open the door were met with a grin and a shake of the head, so in the end I had to lean through the window next to the door (which luckily was ajar) and unlock the door.
Crisis averted! If that window hadn't been open, I don't know what would have happened - possibly I'd have had to shoulder barge down the door?! Which would have been more fun than singing the ABC Song, but probably wouldn't look to good on my reference.
Not content with one spanner in my well oiled English teaching machine, once the lesson started I noticed a spider climbing up the wall. Not a biggy, but a pretty ugly looking brute which I wasn't keen to get near. Once the kids noticed it they were entranced, and I was deeply deeply concerned that they might get frightened by it which would mean I'd have to touch it with my actual hands to get ride of it. But, after freaking me out for a bit, it buggered of into a crack in the wall. Phew.
I'd also like to mention that I'm feeling a bit smug today because this same class had a craft activity today where the kids were meant to cut out some shapes from coloured paper and glue them together to make a picture of a house. Now, these kids are lovely little mites, but they can't cut out FOR SHIT. Previous lessons involving the use of scissors have seen a flurry of confetti blanket the floor as they shear off bits of the paper, seemingly at random. So today before the lesson I cut out all the bits beforehand, meaning they only had to glue them onto a piece of A4. One of them still managed to cover the opposite side of the paper with prittstick and almost adhere it to the table, but overall they made some nice little houses which I was very pleased with. Hurrah.
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