Posts Tagged NOVA kids
August 11, 2004 – Return of the good kids class
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on August 18, 2014
Today I was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of my supervisors managed to change my schedule so I could teach my awesome Wednesday group kids class again! For the first time ever I am excited about a schedule change that results in additional kids classes!
July 28, 2004 – Schedule changes
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on August 15, 2014
A regular shift at NOVA is eight lessons and a lunch or dinner break. Today I got to observe two training lessons, and got an empty slot to work on my Voice coordinator duties, so I only had to teach five lessons.
One of the lessons was my good Wednesday group kids class. I haven’t taught them in a while, and they were happy to see me. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues next month, I will be working at Keikyu Kawasaki NOVA on Wednesdays and someone else will get my good kids group. It really sucks because they are the one group of kids I actually enjoy teaching, and they like me too! Hopefully I will get them back in September.
July 17, 2004 – Too many kids
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on August 12, 2014
The entire Kawasaki NOVA schedule was filled with kids classes today. I was scheduled for three, but only had students show up for two.
I taught a 3 year old girl in one of my classes. She kept trying to climb furniture and jump on me. She also picked her nose a lot. Seriously a lot. When she wasn’t trying to jump on me, her finger was spelunking in her nasal cavity. I felt nauseous for about two hours after the class ended.
I finished my busy day, and then realized that since tomorrow is an early shift, I will be back at work in about 11 hours. BOOOOO!
July 11, 2004 – Returnee student
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on August 10, 2014
Like most Sundays at NOVA, today was a very busy day, but I got to finish in the afternoon instead of the evening. I am now spending way too much time at the internet cafe, catching up on the internet time I missed when my family was here.
Today I had a man to man lesson with a 6 year old returnee student. Kids students who have lived in English speaking countries are usually taught separately from the rest of the NOVA Kids so they can have more challenging material.
Today’s lesson material was animals. Regular NOVA Kids would get a lesson with “It’s a bird, what is it?” to which they would respond “It’s a bird!”. They would learn about 5 or 6 other animals and then the rest of the class would be spent playing games to reinforce the new vocabulary. For this returnee student, I brought in a whole pile of different animal flashcards. She knew all of the names already, so I tried to come up with a new challenge for her. I set up the flashcards around the room, gave her a paper ball, and asked her to throw the ball at various animals; animals that ate meat, animals that could fly, animals that live in Japan, etc. The lesson turned out well and we both had fun. I feel bad for this kid if any teacher goes into the classroom and tries to stick to the lesson plan.
May 19, 2004 – Good kids class
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English, Team Awesome Sauce on May 19, 2014
With the impending arrival of my friends I decided to use my time before work in order to get prepared. Unfortunately, sleeping in extra late is not the best way to be productive. After I finally woke up I rushed to do a bunch of laundry and tidy up various messes in my room. Just before I started writing this blog entry I looked up train times to get to Narita airport for the pickup.
I have a regular group kids class on Wednesday now that is actually really good (unlike my Friday class). I like the kids and they actually seem to like me as well. At the end of our lesson I wrote on the whiteboard that I was going on vacation for 2 weeks, and then somehow managed to explain it to them. They all looked sad and actually lined up to shake my hand on the way out. Sometimes being a teacher can be pretty cool! These kids are not getting any homework when I am back to work.
April 23, 2004 – Whatever it takes to get English
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on April 23, 2014
In my NOVA kids class today I caught a rubber ball directly in the face and accidentally drew on my own tie with a market. However, the kids all used English for most of the class, so I am happy. Whatever it takes to get them to speak more English in class.
April 9, 2004 – The Numbers Game
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on April 9, 2014
I now have only 6 kids in my Friday group class. In theory, 6 kids should be easier to handle than 8 kids. In reality, it just gives them more space to run around not listening to me. Overall they were better than usual.
(2014 update) I do feel bad for the kids, forced to spend 40 minutes of their Friday evening studying English. I probably wouldn’t have been happy to be there either.
April 2, 2004 – Back from the dead
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on April 2, 2014
Sleep and movies makes colds go away! I felt pretty good and was super productive. I managed to finally get back to the immigration office to pick up my pickuppables, got my hair cut, and picked up dry cleaning. Also, my kids class wasn’t terrible today.
But the real reason why it was a great day was that I found out the Pixies will be coming to Japan this summer! Details to follow.
(2014 Update) Yeah… I never got to see the Pixies when they came to Japan 😦
March 12, 2004 – (not the cat)
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on March 12, 2014
My kids class wasn’t terrible today for a change. Also, the boys managed to finally win one of the group games. In a class of 9-12 year olds, the girls usually do much better with everything.
Somehow the boys learned the word pussy (not the cat) and were using it in class to try to get a reaction from me. I can assure you that I didn’t teach it to them!
January 24, 2004 – 4 months in Japan
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on January 24, 2014
Nova Classrooms – a maze of glass boxes
As of today I have officially spent 4 months in Japan. I celebrated this momentous occasion by… working.
At work I managed to distract two other classes during a man-to-man kids class. “Man-to-man” is the term used when a student specifically requests a one on one class with the teacher, regardless of the gender or age of the student. A “lucky man-to” is the NOVA student term for when they book a group lesson but happen to be the only student to show up.
The first distraction was caused when I needed to go to the teacher’s room to get some teaching material that I forgot. NOVA classrooms are little glass boxes, so you can see what’s going on around you. A student from another class stopped listening to her teacher and watched me go all the way to the teacher’s room and back. It was a little strange.
The second distraction came when I was teaching using the “throw the paper ball at the flashcard” technique. The target language had phrases and pictures from a short story. I would read one of the cards, and the student would have to throw a paper ball at the card and knock it down. Then she would pick a card and read to me, and I would have to knock down the card. This sounds a bit dumb, but it involves both listening to English to identify the correct target card, and reading English to tell me which card to hit. Also, kids absolutely love this.
On one turn, the paper ball took a bad bounce and rolled under the wall into the next classroom. Without thinking about it too hard, I was down on the ground (in my shirt and tie) reaching under the wall into the next classroom to retrieve the lost paper ball. I had just closed my hand around the ball when one of the students noticed an arm grabbing around on the floor and screamed. I popped up and explained what happened, which cracked up the entire next classroom. I basically brought both classes to a complete stop, but everyone seemed to have a good laugh about it.
Drinking in Japan 
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