There are some great teachers in Japan and every so often you come across a school where just about the entire staff has had a genki gene implanted at birth and are the most enthusiastic, welcoming and friendly people you can possibly imagine. Today’s school fell squarely into this category.

First up we started with a kids show, which I did think was a little mean as the kids were still on holiday! But it’s their “toukoubi” where they pop back to school every so often to check they are keeping up to date with their homework. This did mean the show was a little tricky to do as the thing I had to be better than was not just any normal lessons, I had to be better than the Playstation games they would be normally enjoying in the comfort of their homes. And it was absolutely swelteringly hot in the school gym. A new rule I think, no non-air conditioned shows in August from now on! But the kids were great and ploughed through everything even though the gym resembled a swimming pool by the end of things with all the sweat everyone was pouring on the floor. The school had a great sound system and we had two projectors filling up the stage with the illustrations from the CDs, very nice.

Then in the afternoon was the teachers workshop and they were great. Unlike the last few weeks these teachers have to teach on their own and so were very hungry for help and answers! I don’t think I’ve had as many questions asked in ages, including one killer question from the head teacher “The thing is that we don’t know what we don’t know”. Aha. But all the others were straight forward and although we did activities like How are you? and the Monster Game, Halloween and Harry Potter, they were more interested in getting answers to their problems and were really, really attentive. They’d seen how well the lower grades react, and how the upper grades really can’t learn as easily and were totally on board with how to make the 6 year curriculum. Plus they invited me back.

I had planned to do a day trip down here from Fukuoka, but the train times would mean I would have to leave at 6AM, which didn’t really appeal, so I actually came down the night before. When they were found out they were saying “You should have told us, we’d have gone out for some beers!”. So they invited me along to their bowling and beer party tonight, which was really, really, nice of them and I had a great time. Bowling was fun and they are such a great group of teachers. Again it’s one of those schools that really make me wish I was an ALT again! Anyway, they should do a great job teaching English and International Understanding and hopefully I’ll be able to to help them along their road. For now I’ve caught the last train back to Fukuoka with a feeling of a very good days’ work done.