School!

On the first day of school, I had to give a speech at the opening ceremony. I think it went pretty well. Most of it was in English, and Kae translated for everyone. Not being able to keep track of all the formalities and stuff, I feel like a moron. Kae keeps having to signal to me, “bow,” “stand up,” “sit down,” “take your hands out of your pockets.” I just try to smile a lot to smooth things over.

After the ceremony, the students had to go clean the school (at the end of each school day, the kids clean the school for about twenty-minutes – I guess so they don’t have to hire a janitorial staff). I went to visit the elementary schools I’ll be teaching at (finally). Everyone at the elementary schools is very nice, and the kids are very cute, but I’ll be in charge of 5th and 6th grade English instruction at three different schools. In junior high classrooms, I am an assistant, but in the elementary school classes, I run the show. The homeroom teachers don’t speak English, so I’m on my own. It should be interesting…

On Tuesday I had my first day of classes. In junior high I did a self introduction and showed some pictures. Kae had the kids fill out a worksheet, answering questions about the things I said. Even though the kids are really shy, it went really smoothly.
Then, I went to one of the elementary schools for classes. This Australian guy, Peter, kind of led the classes to ease me into it (which was good). Peter has been teaching elementary school kids English for ten years. He has a company that places private English teachers with schools. He was there to help out one of his employees (the husband of a new JET who’s teaching 3rd and 4th grades at the school’s I’ll be at). So, he gave me a hand too. He was really, really good – a tough act to follow. I’ll be on my own next week. Oh boy…