Today was the first board of education workshop of the year organised by one of the Ministry of Education’s test schools. They also opened it up to other teachers – including junior high teachers – so we had quite a nice turn out.

Content wise it was the usual confidence building & questions: What if I can’t speak English, how can I teach it? What to teach? How about 5th and 6th graders? Why teach English? What about katakana? etc. all easy stuff. I also tried out the new !, you, he, she, we are hungry song which worked a treat after “How are you?“.

One guy was arguing with me saying that it’s OK to teach pronunciation that’s wrong, which was a little tricky to counter, but other than that everything was cool. At the end the junior high school teachers were asking all sorts of questions, which was really nice to hear, I think they got just as much out of it as the elementary teachers. And apparently I got full marks on the evaluation sheets. Naoyama sensei is coming up from Kyoto to do their next lecture, I wonder how that will work out.

I also got asked twice about the GE artwork and why some of it looks “funny”. “The kids point at them and make comments” said one of the teachers. Well, that’s the reason why they are like they are! I purposely use stuff that gets a reaction from the kids. Unfortunately it’s the teachers who decide to use GE or not, hence why some of the newer cards are more “professional” because teachers like them better, but it’s the older funny looking ones that gets the kids talking!

Now it’s onto the first of 5 (yes 5!) trains to get to the airport to fly down to Okinawa for tomorrow. I’ll be shattered after 9 hours of travelling. Well, at least I didn’t have to catch two aeroplanes like was originally planned!