![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer work-cation
Aug. 3rd, 2010 01:18 pmSo apparently in Japan's junior high schools there's a competition called the Interactive English Forum. Much like the name implies, it's an event where students are put into groups and talk about a topic in English. The topics are things like 'my school', 'my dream', 'seasons', etc., and the students are judged as they talk, and scored on their English skill, as well as their ability to keep the conversation going. Each school sends eight students - four second-years (8th graders), and four third-years (9th graders). The first level of the competition, the city-wide tournament, was last month, and of course my junior high participated.
We had been working with our students for a few months beforehand, and they had me working exclusively with the second-years (so during the event I felt a little bad, since I talked mostly with them, and only watched them - I wasn't ignoring the third-years, per se, but I couldn't help but not feel nearly as invested in them, since I hadn't spent any time with them at all). Our second-year students were two girls and two boys. The girls were very good; they have good English (they also go to a private English school outside of regular school), and came up with good, insightful things to say for the topics. The boys................ were ok. .^^; One of the boys has average middle school English, but he's very enthusiastic about it. He wants to learn a lot; the problem is, when he tries to speak English outside of class (as in, when he doesn't have his notes and textbook right in front of him) he gets very nervous and locks up. The other boy has average middle school English as well, but lacks the interest... or a long- or short-term memory... or ideas of what to talk about in a structured format. Etc. .^^
Anyway. Because our girls were good, we had high hopes for them, and one of the them ended up getting (randomly) chosen to be in the very first group of speakers in the very first round. .^^; She was sooo nervous! I felt bad for her. But once she got up there and started doing it, she rocked it so hard I wanted to cry tears of pride. =P Then our next girl gets up, and she blew 'em away too! I wanted to jump up and down for them.
To make a long story short, out of seven schools, those two girls ofmine ours were among the ones picked to move on and represent the city of Chikusei at the next stage, which I believe is the west side of Ibaraki prefecture. I assume if they go on from there it'll be to all of Ibaraki, Kantou, Honshu, etc.
(Though, the other ALTs and I were talking and admitted that if any of our students made it to where they're going against Tokyo students, they'd probably get crushed, seeing as Tokyo has kids who've spent half their lives in America or at boarding schools in London, or who have foreign English-speaking parents at home, or something.)
So, the only thing about them moving on is it's meant me spending part of my summer vacation working. But this is a good thing! Because otherwise I'd be spending the entire five weeks not leaving my apartment (instead of just most of it). .^^ And I'm happy to help, so it's not really work at all.
.... And it doesn't hurt that our English teacher in charge of the forum stuff treated me to sushi train sushi today, as a thanks. .^,^
And also, the other "fun" part about the forum last month was that apparently they wanted we ALTs to say words at the opening and closing ceremonies. Except... nobody bothered telling us until we got there. .^^; So I walked into the auditorium and got told "You're giving the closing statements." ......... Eeh!? ... Well, luckily for me closing the event meant I had all day to think of what to say, and I think I gave a nice little speech. Wasn't bad at all... especially knowing the only ones who understood me fully were the other ALTs. XD
(Actually, beforehand we were joking "yeah, we could just stand up there and be like 'blah blah blah you, blah blah good job, blah, thank you' and nobody would know the difference." Then we dared one of the guys to just say the 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' rap, but he didn't.)
So yeah. It's been fun, and I totes proud my girls. Tomorrow is the next level, so~
がんばります～！
We had been working with our students for a few months beforehand, and they had me working exclusively with the second-years (so during the event I felt a little bad, since I talked mostly with them, and only watched them - I wasn't ignoring the third-years, per se, but I couldn't help but not feel nearly as invested in them, since I hadn't spent any time with them at all). Our second-year students were two girls and two boys. The girls were very good; they have good English (they also go to a private English school outside of regular school), and came up with good, insightful things to say for the topics. The boys................ were ok. .^^; One of the boys has average middle school English, but he's very enthusiastic about it. He wants to learn a lot; the problem is, when he tries to speak English outside of class (as in, when he doesn't have his notes and textbook right in front of him) he gets very nervous and locks up. The other boy has average middle school English as well, but lacks the interest... or a long- or short-term memory... or ideas of what to talk about in a structured format. Etc. .^^
Anyway. Because our girls were good, we had high hopes for them, and one of the them ended up getting (randomly) chosen to be in the very first group of speakers in the very first round. .^^; She was sooo nervous! I felt bad for her. But once she got up there and started doing it, she rocked it so hard I wanted to cry tears of pride. =P Then our next girl gets up, and she blew 'em away too! I wanted to jump up and down for them.
To make a long story short, out of seven schools, those two girls of
(Though, the other ALTs and I were talking and admitted that if any of our students made it to where they're going against Tokyo students, they'd probably get crushed, seeing as Tokyo has kids who've spent half their lives in America or at boarding schools in London, or who have foreign English-speaking parents at home, or something.)
So, the only thing about them moving on is it's meant me spending part of my summer vacation working. But this is a good thing! Because otherwise I'd be spending the entire five weeks not leaving my apartment (instead of just most of it). .^^ And I'm happy to help, so it's not really work at all.
.... And it doesn't hurt that our English teacher in charge of the forum stuff treated me to sushi train sushi today, as a thanks. .^,^
And also, the other "fun" part about the forum last month was that apparently they wanted we ALTs to say words at the opening and closing ceremonies. Except... nobody bothered telling us until we got there. .^^; So I walked into the auditorium and got told "You're giving the closing statements." ......... Eeh!? ... Well, luckily for me closing the event meant I had all day to think of what to say, and I think I gave a nice little speech. Wasn't bad at all... especially knowing the only ones who understood me fully were the other ALTs. XD
(Actually, beforehand we were joking "yeah, we could just stand up there and be like 'blah blah blah you, blah blah good job, blah, thank you' and nobody would know the difference." Then we dared one of the guys to just say the 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' rap, but he didn't.)
So yeah. It's been fun, and I totes proud my girls. Tomorrow is the next level, so~
がんばります～！
