Today was an especially fun day for us, as we spent it in a public middle school. Getting to school with millions of students cramming the subways, and adults going to work was an experience in itself.
When we entered the school, there were places for all teachers, visitors, and students to store their shoes. Teachers and students have a set of indoor school only slippers to wear.
Visitors are given a one size fits all Japanese foot slipper. Unfortunately, we do not have Japanese size feet. Neither of our feet fit the shoes well, Russ's feet in these slippers were pretty hilarious as he schlepped down the hallway with a funny little shuffle.
This morning we were working with a first year, but very capable English teacher, coaching here on how to play a game with her 7th year students. In Japan, these are grade 1 middle school students, who have just begun their English lessons. Our host Takashi-san told us that learning English was usually boring for students, and he was interested in how we could make the lesson fun for them.
The game we intended to play was spelling baseball. I had asked the teacher several weeks ago for a vocabulary list of what words the students had already learned. From that list I organized the words by spelling difficulty, 1st base words -easiest to homer words - most difficult.
The game we intended to play was spelling baseball. I had asked the teacher several weeks ago for a vocabulary list of what words the students had already learned. From that list I organized the words by spelling difficulty, 1st base words -easiest to homer words - most difficult.
We met with the teacher during her prep period, and after our discussion, revised the game plan from a spelling game to a translation game, Japanese words to English words, and suggested the teacher take some latitude with students regarding the translation difficulty of the words and capability of the students. We made base signs for the room with home plate at the front of the room.
I explained that this game could get quite noisy with excitement, and the she would have to control student enthusiasm if we were to give everyone of her students (37 in a class), and opportunity at the "bat" during a 45 minute period. We talked about a quiet sign of raising our hand for silence and that the sooner the class quieted down the sooner the next person could be given a word to translate.
Russ took the first 5 minutes of the class with a quick geography lesson and explained to the students that we live in a small town of 1,000 people in Colfax, the same number of people that can fit on one commuter train in Tokyo. (Tokyo runs 20,000,000 a day on their trains). He also showed them the route we took to sail across the ocean from San Francisco to Australia. Kids were wide-eyed.
Next, I introduced and explained the game in English, and the teacher translated. We gave the students the quiet sign and explained how important it was to move the game along to calm down so that the batter could hear the word, and even more importantly they could hear if the student translated correctly. The Japanese students have very little voices and are shy when they are not sure of themselves or in the presence of strangers.
We divided the class into two teams, the Giants and the Tigers, and the game began, a little slowly at first until the kids really understood what it was all about and how to physically move around the classroom from base to base and to home plate.
Then the fun really began with a lot of intensity while students listened carefully to the words and cheered happily and enthusiastically both when their team was up and the opposing team.
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| The first student at bat, score zero/zero. |
It didn't take students long to figure out that when bases were loaded to ask for a home run word. So they learned new English words as those sitting in their seats yelled. "Home run, home run, home run!"
As predicted the excitement grew and the quiet sign came in very handy, and the teacher waited patiently until there was absolute silence. Many of the students started raising their hands spontaneously to signal to other classmates, to be silent.
We repeated the game for three periods, and by third period, the teacher was confident and quick. Everyone had a great time. Before and after each class, students stand at attention, are given a student signal, all give a respectful bow to the teacher.
After third period it was lunch time. The school does not have a kitchen or multi-purpose room, and contracts for lunch to be brought in for every student, every day, served in every classroom. Students bring the food on serving trays to classrooms. We were on the third floor, and students carry up the food when it is delivered, serve the food, and clean up the room afterwards.
We ate with the students after the quick gratitude blessing given by the teacher. Lunch consisted of mixed rice and vegetable, chicken noodle soup, and a piece of fried fish. For drink, there was whole milk. Filling and basic.
On the outside of each room there are cleaning rags. At the end of the school day, students mop the floors, empty the trash, and clean the blackboards. We did not stay all day to see this cleaning in action, but we had noticed how clean the floors were and did stay long enough to observe singing practice for the school festival.
Every class was learning the same song and their beautiful voices could be heard coming from all around the school. The first class we worked in the morning, was the class we observed singing.
We got a kick out of the quiet little voiced students, belting out the song with strong voices. A student conductor brought students to attention and took them through their paces. At the end of the first practice song, the conductor asked the students to critique their performance and what they could do better, pace, harmony, etc.
I had noticed that some of the boys were goofing off in the alto section, and there were a few not in key. When asked for a critique, the shy, quiet girls, became assertive, vocal young women. We didn't have to guess at what their critique was, as the troublesome boys looked quite subdued.
They practiced several more times, before the end of the period, and each time the students, student conductor and teacher critiqued the performance, and the singing improved.
We finally said our goodbyes after a wonderful day. When we left, we boarded the trains again and headed to Enoshima Island, Observation Lighthouse and Samuel Cocking Garden. The sky was overcast, but we enjoyed crossing the walking bridge to the Island,
around the island and climbing up the hundreds of steps to the top of the mountain where the Sky Candle Tower rises high.
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| See that little speck at the top of the hill? Yep we climbed to the top! |
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| Friendship Force Members, Sumiko and our host Takashi |
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Russ has a purchase ticket for an octopus rice cake |
On our way back, along the Enoshima Island shopping street, we tried a new food. Squashed octupus rice cakes. A small Octupus is place in steaming hot press and squished flat in a light rice batter, repressed, and pressed again, until a huge flakey wafer is produced. We weren't sure what it would taste like, but it was surprisingly good, like a calamari wafer.
When we returned home, our hostess Yokiko had prepared yet another wonderful dinner for us.
We have one more full day, tomorrow, in Tokyo when we will do a little more site seeing and museum going. It is a constant rain now, before the Typhoon Lan hits Tokyo on Sunday night, Monday morning. We will leave early Sunday evening just before the Typhoon. We are keeping our fingers crossed that all goes well not only for us, but for our new friends in Tokyo.
The next blog I post will be from California, once we return home.
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