It was strange waking up in a Japanese room today, it felt like I was back in Ehime.
Anyway over breakfast I figured that things were probably going to be like yesterday ( not many people), so instead of a full on whiz through all the CD5 songs I’d just do a small group thing of two complete demo lessons, going through warm up / song / game. And what happens? The room was full!! So that was that idea out of the window! But the boss there, Sone san, had done a great job of getting so many genki teachers there, and it made a huge difference actually having it in the store. A lot of the teachers ( and parents ) were also the first time to a Genki English workshop, which is always good, especially when they are comparing other teaching materials!
I did try a couple of games, and they worked so-so well, but doing them with the kids was a bit tricky. I would have really liked to slow things down to the pace of a normal lesson as the kids had got the English, but just needed that little extra push to really get into the game. It really is all confidence teaching in the beginning. But I did have to move quite quickly in order to show off more of CD5 and also the card game which is apparently proving popular in the shops. The teachers seemed to understand though and the kids were quite happy to just play around at being bugs even if they didn’t finish the game! The Dragon Version of Mr Monkey went down well as well, using chairs instead of desks is probably the way to go!
I also had 90 minutes which was a little long for the kids, but great to be able to explain all the points to the teachers. The idea of jumping straight to plurals with the Food Song got a lot of “aha”s!
Actually Kyoto is turning into a nice place, with a good group of teachers who seem very in to what they are doing. One lady was also asking about Elementary School teachers and the problems she has. Which are of course the problems everyone has, so hopefully things like the Classroom English CD should be able to help out.
Then it was time to hop on the Shinkansen, but it was full for the next two hours! I’ve never seen that before, I guess the Japanese economy must really be on the mend. So I’m now right on top of Kyoto Eki, I always wondered what was up here and seeing as it’s just about the only station in Japan where I don’t know where the Starbucks is I figured I’d explore a bit. It’s like they built a massive Battlestar Galactica style mini city up here!
Anyway today was a great end to a very , very whirlwind tour of Japan, covering everything from football and ALT madness in Shinjuku to downtown Kyoto. Tomorrow I’ll have a day off, then for the next couple of weeks I’ll be getting some of the stuff I’ve been talking all week actually produced!
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