八木山小学校での授業
◎Monday, Oct. 16thKey Word: 八木山小学校、American BoyThis day was the day I had been looking forward to fromthe bottom of my heart.I was supposed to teach English to students at 八木山 Elementary.I had asked one of my students, who had a good experiencein teaching English to grade schoolers to go to the school with me.I had also asked her to teach English through games to lowergraders. I was going to teach English to upper graders.I left my apartment around 8:30 and rode a motorbiketo go to the top of 八木山峠 where the school is based in.I got there at 9:10. The student of mine joined me around9:20.Soon, the second period started.In the beginning of the second period, I noticed a boy wholooked to be American, then when I heard him sayingEnglish words, I was convinced that that boy is American.It was a little surprising to me that an American boynow studies at rural and small elementary school like八木山小学校. His parents, I believe, made a good decisionto send their son to this school, which is surrounded byrich nature.The student began to teach English to the 1st, 2nd and 3rdgraders. They were about 20 in number.The 2nd and 3rd graders remember me, since I taught Englishto them around the same season last year.The female teacher introduced two kinds of games:First she used marbles: She gave two marbles to each student.She said, "Let's play じゃんけん with your friend. If you loseyou have to give one of your two marbles to your friend.In other words, if you win, you can win one marble from youropponent. If you lose all the marbles, please go to me or Kenfor another two marbles." It was a very interesting and inspiringgame for them, I guess.Before doing this game, the female teacher(my student)taught them how to say numbers in English, say, from1 to 20, how to do じゃんけん in English and how to ask us foranother two marbles in English.When she was explaining how to do じゃんけん in English,the American boy defied me to do じゃんけん with me.The game started. Students sometimes came to meto play じゃんけん or to ask me for another two marbles.I sometimes lost in じゃんけん, but I had a good time withthem. The game went on for 20 min. or so.After this game, each of the students reported the numberof marbles they won in English.Then, the teacher moved on to the next game.She introduced 12 different colors and made the studentsrepeat after her while she was reading out the colors in English.After studying the colors, the female teacher divided the studentsinto two groups and told them to make a line each.Then, we placed each color in a line in the center of the room.She explained the students how to play the game.A student from each team had to start to move on the linetouching each of colored paper from opposite ends.When they meet, they have to play じゃんけん.A winner is able to go on colored papers toward the opponent base untilthe next player shows up on his/her way.It was a very exciting game for the students.We enjoyed the two games.In the next period, I taught the upper graders how to calculate in Englishand how to exchange greetings with each other.First, I sang a Jazz chant, then moved on to the calculationand the practice of greeting such as "How are you?".They all remembered me and what I had done last year welland so it was very easy for me to have this English lesson,even though I had to tell loudly them to be quite.-------------KEN