Today I had to teach a "show class" at my elementary school. The show class itself is a 45 min class where teachers from around the prefecture come and "observe" your class to get ideas as well as give you constructive feedback. (although the feedback is in Japanese so I rarely get to hear it) Show classes tend to involve a string of gratuitous meetings beforehand, a lot of stress (from the homeroom teacher) and last minute panic!
Note: Only one not wearing those awful masks
This lesson was a 5th grade lesson and was team teaching with my favourite teacher Kimura Sensei. The topic was subjects (I study maths, I study English etc), part of the Eigo Note curriculum, so I suggested I talk for 10 minutes at the beginning of the lesson about my niece Tegan's school in England, their timetable, what they study, what they have for lunch etc and they agreed.
I sent my documents to Nori for translation and to put into Powerpoint and then it dawned on me that most teachers (I guess this is global!) are computer illiterate! Nori had spent half a day trying to lay out a slide so I showed him a few shortcuts. Word went around in the office and the next minute I had been hailed as the computer super whizz kid in the staff room! Hilarious, lots of "segoi's" (amazing) Even kyoto sensei (deputy head) came over for the scoop.
Back to the lesson. All went pretty well. The kids in this class are usually so loud and genki but because it was a show lesson they were sat in some kind of petrified silence, shame! They enjoyed hearing about Tegan's day at school although they couldn't believe that Tegan (unlike most Japanese pupils) doesn't have to clean the school after lunch and that in England kids start primary school as young as 4 1/2 years old.
Thanks Benji and Tegan for sending all of the information over!
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