Today I had a goodbye ceremony at one of my primary schools. I have two days left there, then I may never go back again… It was such an awesome memory that I want to share with everyone and makes singing songs with grade one kids and a sore throat… a bit more bearable! Hehe.

This is my large school of about 450-500 kids. I have to say the kids here have been awesome – I’m fairly shy but the kids come up to me to talk to me, always say hello and the kids get so excited to see me. There are also some kids that I feel I have come to know, even if just a little bit, and it makes me sad to think I wont see them again! I wont forget!!

The ceremony started with me walking into the school’s gym. At school, of course, you have to wear your indoor shoes. Well, in the gym you have to wear a different set of indoor shoes. So I was stuck wearing the school’s slippers (which means I was only a second away from falling over and dieing). I walked through the centre of the grade one students and gave them all high fives. Yeah! The speaches were half in Japanese then half in English, but the kids of course didn’t write the English (and don’t get me started who is considered an authority on English at this school ) and the echo of the place made it very hard for me to understand their English! But I got the gist

Next we played a Janken game. Scissors, paper, rock has been a bit mangled in this country (in English) I guess to facilitate learning the game. When I was a kid all we did was “one two three”. Here we start off “rock, scissors, paper, one, two, three”. Anyway, we played this where if they lost against me they had to sit down. Then was a whispers game where I whispered (and spread a cold to the entire school) an English word to the kids and they had it go down the line.
And finally a “maru batsu” game – or a true or false quiz. I am still not sure what the second question was but apparently it was true, whatever it was about me.

Representatives from each class came up and gave me a poster or card that everyone had signed. So sweet, but the vast majority just say “Thank you for teaching various English” (in Japanese), but it is a great reinforcement of Vて　くれる pattern I guess. I’m only joking, I love these! some had photos too which was awesome!! After some speeches everyone sang Chiisana Koi no Uta, the song from Proposal Daisakusen and one of my favourites!! Here’s the lyrics. I was very moved by this!

An abundance of origami, which is apparently a huge hit with the grade one kids.  

A pile of my goodbye cards!! So sweet. And next, the kids in the special needs class. They were learning impared, but to me they still seemed pretty smart, just a level or two below what their peers.

Later after school three girls came in to the staff room and gave me these cute little popup cards! You can see one on the edge on the left of the above photo! It’s the little things like this that make me happy. Also, for those who want a little Japanese reading practise, here’s the write up in Japanese of the event. Happy nihongoing! (What’s up with the “stone, scissors, paper” bit… I’m pretty sure I know who typed this up and am not surprised…) 英語の授業でお世話になったＡＬＴのカーリー先生とのお別れ会が行われました。 9月から豊が丘小学校で英語を教えていただいたカーリー先生とお別れのときがやってきました。 １２月１５日(火)５限目、体育館で児童会主催の｢カーリー先生とのお別れ会｣が行われました。 カーリー先生の入場です。 児童会の人が先導しての入場です。 みんなは大きな拍手で迎えました。 はじめに児童会役員さんがお世話になったカーリー先生へ、日本語と英語を使って「はじめのあいさつ」を言いました。 次にカーリー先生と「じゃんけんゲーム」をしました。 やり方は、児童会の人が「ストーン、シーザー、ペーパー、ワン、ツー、スリー！」と声をかけます。 カーリー先生に勝った人だけが勝ち残りとなります。 とっても白熱したゲームでした。 最後まで残った人に大きな拍手がおくられました。 次に「伝言ゲーム」をしました。 カーリー先生が列の先頭の子に英語の言葉を伝えて、後ろへどんどん伝えていくというゲームです。 舞台で先頭の子がカーリー先生から言葉を伝えてもらっているところです。 今回は、「ブラック」と「ショルダー」を伝えていきました。 次に○×クイズをしました。 カーリー先生に関する楽しいクイズを児童会の人たちが考えてくれました。 「カーリー先生の名字はキムである。○か×か？」 子どもたちは、頭の上で○×で答えを示しました。 「答えは○です」 「○」があがると、みんなは大歓声をあげました。 お世話になったカーリー先生に各クラスで心を込めて書いた「お礼の寄せ書き」をお渡ししました。 各学級の代表の人に渡してもらいました。 カーリー先生からの「お礼のあいさつ」がありました。 日本語と英語をつかって心のこもったあいさつをされました。 その後、校長先生からも英語と日本語でお礼のあいさつがありました。 最後にみんなで心をこめて元気よく「小さな恋の歌」を歌いました。 この曲はカーリー先生もオーストラリアで聞いたことがあるそうです。 カーリー先生の退場です。 カーリー先生、楽しい授業をありがとうございました。次の学校でも頑張ってください。   And there we go! Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Related posts

Proposal Daisakusen SP – Review Proposal Daisakusen – Reviews Index Proposal Daisakusen – Episode 9 Proposal Daisakusen – Episode 8 Proposal Daisakusen – Episode 7

So, incase you don’t know, I recently moved to Japan as part of the JET program. I moved from Australia to Mie-ken in Japan to teach English. I arrived in August, which is school holidays for the kids. So my first time teaching in Japan wasn’t at a school but was at a Summer “camp” for children aged 5 to 11ish. It was at two locations each with two sessions. It wasn’t exactly a camp, but more like a class that the kids came to. It involved all the middle school/elementary ALTs, some JETs some not, in my area.

The above photo is our preperations for the classes. The program itself was called “Let’s Enjoy English”, of course using the “let’s” form which is everywhere in this country.
    We broke each day into three sessions of about 30 mins each. We wrote down a whole heap of topics we could perhaps use and then finally narrowed them down to the ones we would use. Then we broke ourselves into groups and put each group in charge of a topic to come up with the activities. They were all fairly simple topics such as feelings and fruit as most of the children were in grade one.

The two days were lots of fun. My topic was fruit and we were lucky to have some plastic fruit with us. First we played the missing game, taking away different fruit each time and the kids had to guess what was missing. And then we put blind folds on the children and made them guess what fruit they were holiding.

It was lots of fun, but oh my goodness I was worn out afterwards! The kids were so cute – shy while by themselves but really got into the games. So luckily my first experience teaching children was a very enjoyable experience. I have quite a few photos but unfortunatly I was requested not to put them up on the inernet. In stead you’ll have to put up with this photo of me covered in body part stickers.

A job that involves playing all day is pretty sweet
  Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.  

Related posts

No related posts.