Today was up very early then an hour’s drive into the mountains of Hiroshima. In the morning after chatting to the teachers I got lots of computer work done so was in a good mood! Then in the afternoon was the kids show. Usually for elementary schools I just do a show but today as a special favour at the teachers request we changed things a bit, doing one song then a “Kids’ Questions” time, another song and another set of questions. Usually kids wouldn’t have the stamina or energy to do this for 90 minutes but this school was great!! They did great on the songs, got all the motivation stuff and asked loads of cool questions! It was also great that I could theme the songs to the questions they were wanting to ask – brilliant! It was really fun to teach!

Then a ten minute break and a teaching seminar. Usually in the teachers seminars I do a mixture of practice and theory, plus a bit of warming up. But straight after the show the teachers were certainly warmed up, had seen everything work in practise so it was just a case of going through the whys and why nots of how to teach English. And they were great. It was another great situation really, as they have 35 hours a year of English, but only ten of these with the ALT. So as usual my recommendation was to use the software and curriculum ( again it was great to see their eyes light up when they saw how easy it was!) to teach the English, then when the ALT does come the kids will be able to use the English they’ve learnt. I also went through the “Dos and Don’ts of teaching with an ALT” and as usual they didn’t believe the “kanchou” problem actually happens!! But they were great, and hopefully I cleared a lot of things up for them and the kids, who are great already, will go on to be even better!!

So then I took the train back to Hiroshima and by 10PM I was just shattered!!