SEPTEMBER REPORT 1

September! The summer holiday finished, the students came back to school and I began to teach lessons in Imazu Junior High School. My first lessons were self introductions - but I made it into a game so the students wouldn't be bored. I think the students enjoyed the puzzle I made for them, and were very interested to see the new 'strange' English teacher.

Everything in the school was very new for me, and very different for me - Here are some examples of differences.

In England we have a dining room for school dinners and 'Dinner ladies' serve the food, in Japan the students eat in their home rooms and the students serve the food.

We also have a choice of food, but in Japan it is a fixed meal everyday.

Japanese students cannot take mobile phones, sweets or money to school - English children have all of these things, but I think it is better in Japan that they do NOT have them! Japanese children have MUCH better behaviour at school than English children.

Japanese students do have a lot of after school clubs though, which I never had in my school.

Cleaning time is also a big difference as students in England don't clean the school, there are cleaners to that!

School starting also means that there are more school events, so soon it was time to do the full 2 day kayak trip on Lake Biwa. Which was great fun, with a chance to stay in the hotel in Hagahama this time and see the students entertainment program, also the students got to swim and play in th lake which looked like a lot of fun (so I joined them!)

This trip was bigger than the last one with more people taking part. So there were more teachers there -

and parents helping out as well -

it was a great feeling that everybody was working together to make it a fun event.
Kayaking is great fun and I'd love to do it more in the future - I'm already looking forward to next year's Kayaking trip.

Another event I was involved in a lot was the Speech Contest in Otsu. From the time I arrived I began helping 4 students prepare for the Interschool English Language Speech Contest. The first round of the contest was on September 10th and I travelled with Hoki Sensei

to Otsu to support our students. All four students (Centre picture from left to right: Mae, Sayaka, Sayuri and Kurumi) worked very hard and really practiced very hard. We were very pleased with them all.

Thanks to all their hard work and team effort supporting each other one student, Sayaka, even won the third prize in the recital section - so the whole team was very happy. Well done!

Not just these students worked hard though - all the students work very hard nand try their best as I saw a few days later when there was a school sports day. I was very impressed to see the sytudents try really hard to improve their fastest times running or highest jumps.

So this month I learned a lot about Japanese school life and students - Japanese students seem a lot more innocent and childlike than English children the same age, but they are also very passionate about things and really try their hardest when they decide to participate in something. This is a good thing and it makes it easier to be a teacher here because I really respect that about them.