Posts Tagged teaching English to kids
May 4, 2005 – Wednesdays in Fuji
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on May 4, 2015
This month I am working Wednesdays at Fuji school. Fuji is short a few people at the moment, so teachers are being temporarily moved between branches to pick up the slack.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of teachers, I will be getting a group kids class on Wednesday. Now I will have one group class for every day of the week. Group kids classes are still my least favourite part of the job.
Other than my kids class, today was pretty quiet. I only had a total of 4 students on the rest of the schedule. It was nice to visit a different branch to see some different students and get some variety on my dinner options.
April 15, 2005 – Three days in a row
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Teaching English on April 15, 2015
Today I successfully worked through a cold. It helped that I once again had a good kids class. I have now had 3 good kids classes in 3 days! Is this really possible? Is this some kind of wonderful dream?
Even though I was fighting a cold, I felt better than my roommate Palmer. He badly sprained his ankle during basketball practice, and came home on crutches in a lot of pain. Getting to and from work on crutches is going to be hard enough, but he works at Numazu NOVA where the teacher’s room is on the first floor, and the classrooms are on the second floor. That’s not going to be fun.
Remember kids – sports are bad for you.
March 18, 2005 – More games less teaching
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 18, 2015
Teaching English to kids has always been the most challenging part of my job at NOVA. In talking with my supervisors today, they suggested that I am probably expecting too much from the really young kids in the class.
We are given set lesson plans for each kids class, and are supposed to get through the vocabulary and written homework each class. I have been trying to follow this to the letter, which doesn’t work very well for the young kids.
I now have the green light to let the kids play around and have fun, while exposing them to the lesson English. I will now focus on more games and much less formal “teaching”.
I tested out the new strategy today, and have already seen improvements. Hopefully this will work for some of my other classes as well.
March 12, 2005 – Bad kids
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 12, 2015
Today was not so busy at work, but the kids in my kids class were BAD.
February 4, 2005 – Oni wa soto
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 5, 2015
I wish I had saved some of the soybeans from Setsubun for my kids class today. They all seemed to be possessed by demons and needed the kind of exorcising that only roasted soybeans can provide.
ONI WA SOTO!!
December 19, 2004 – Last work day of 2004
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Shizuoka, Teaching English on December 19, 2014
Today was my last work day of 2004! In every lesson I told my students about my holiday plans, whether they wanted to hear it or not. I also had my first ever kids demo lesson. I have done demo lessons before, but never for kids classes. I was worried because teaching kids is still the hardest part of the job for me. My demo student was a 3 year old girl with no knowledge of English at all. Somehow everything worked out, and the parents signed up for lessons.
After work I made a brief appearance at the Mishima NOVA teacher and staff Christmas party before heading home in the icy cold rain. I know I should be packing now, but instead I am updating my blog instead. Not smart. At least I already bought my train tickets to get to the airport tomorrow. I made the purchase all in Japanese, which I am pretty happy about.
Must start packing!
December 13, 2004 – (Not so) wonderful kids
Posted by Barniferous in Shizuoka, Teaching English on December 13, 2014
The injured teacher who was rushed to the hospital a few days ago was back to work today. He was okay to teach in the classroom, but I was asked to teach his kids class to help protect his injured back.
The kids class was full of 8 wonderful children who were very attentive and eager to learn English. They were a pleasure to teach and I think the lesson went very well.
Author’s note: The only thing true about the last two sentences was the number of children.
October 6, 2004 – Last good kids class
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English, Uncategorized on October 6, 2014
Today was the official last day of teaching my Wednesday kids class. Georgia will be taking over the class, so we did a team teach so she could get used to the kids. At the end of the class, I got them to pose for a group picture, and gave them all Canada pencils. I then told them in English (and basic Japanese) that today was my last day teaching them because I was moving to Shizuoka. They all looked really sad. This is the first group of kids that I actually connected with as a teacher, so it was sad for me too.
After my next class, one of the staff told me that some of the students from my class had left a message on the whiteboard for me. I went to the kids classroom and saw that they had filled the entire board with a goodbye message for me. (the picture is above)
For the first time in my year of teaching in Japan, I actually felt like a good kids teacher.
September 25, 2004 – Birth control
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on September 25, 2014
Teaching English to children is a very effective form of birth control. Some days they are HORRIBLE.
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!
Drinking in Japan 
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