Yesterday was the first day of work for me for the year 2011. I didn’t receive any schedule so I didn’t prepare anything at all. When I arrived at the school, I met the English teacher on the hallway and she was so surprised to see me. “Sou da!”. It was so comical, I didn’t mind that I didn’t have anything on my workload today. Later she came and told me that we might not have so many classes till next week because they are preparing for the big exam so would I just prepare for the next lessons? I said sure but later in the day, I guess, they felt guilty that I was just sitting on my desk preparing various worksheets that they told me that I have a class with the first year. I prepared a charades game. It was a flop on the first try with the first class but was a big success on the second.
Day by day, these kinds of experiences affirm to me that one can’t really stereotype a school, a class or a group of students or Japanese (for that matter), into a certain category. They are all different. I only have two junior high schools but the activities I prepare for one school are never applicable to the other school (not completely anyway). How easier my life would be if I can just recycle the activities.
So I thought the charades game I made would be very enjoyable for everybody. It turned out they were too shy to try acting out the words. The JTE informed me that 2 years ago, she tried a similar game and it was a success. It is just not applicable for that class now. But, fortunately, with just a little bit of modification, it was a big success in the next class.
