Tsunoi Elem School, NHK and JET quiz night

After last night I was so glad when today turned into fantastic, glorious weather! It was also so luxurious being in a hotel, I think this maybe the first time an elementary school has put us up in a hotel! Got to Tsunoi Elementary School and although it is Tottori city, it felt like a countryside school and was pretty good. Of course we new the kids would be fantastic as both the Deputy Head and Headmaster were both really cool people. Today the seminar was in the evening so parents could attend, so it was great to have a bit of a break and I sent off the English version of the newsletter. Then the parents and teachers in the evening were cool, but I think a few of them were expecting a free English lesson! But we got a least one of the parents genki enough to try again with their English, and one of the others even proposed to me – shame she was already married! In the evening we were on NHK again. Mind you this time what did we get on for? For travelling 7 hours all the way from Ehime to do one of the best lessons the kids have ever had? For developing the most popular elementary school teaching materials in Japan? Nope, we got on TV for being foreigners who visited a school. This isn’t the 1950s! Then off to the JET quiz night. Great stuff, and the owner of the bar had a great idea. All the teams had to be mixed with JETs and Japanese. Then they would say questions about Western culture in Japanese, and questions about Japanese culture in English, so everyone had to communicate to get the answers! Cool. So if you’d like to try it, head along to VivaShiva restaurant in Tottori City. Afterwards I had quite a few beers and it was great chatting to everyone. Cool.

Richard Graham

Hello, I'm Richard Graham. When I was a kid I found school to be sooooo boring... So I transformed my way of teaching. I listened to what the kids were really wanting to say and taught it in ways they really wanted to learn. The results were magical. Now I help teachers just like you teach amazing lessons and double your incomes!