TUJ Internship October Entries

Things are off to a really great start! I am really excited to be with the older classes so I can actually speak to the students more and gauge their English fluency. Let's keep going!

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Monday, October 3rd

My day with the K1 class was wonderful! Most of my time was spent with Mr. Gian because Ms. Daniella came later and Mr. Ricky had an injury, so he didn’t get to the school until around 2 PM. All of the teachers were so kind and they let me do a lot with the K1 class. In the morning, I helped students with the monthly calendar and making a craft they were absent for. It is amazing how much more independent the K1 class is from the CC class. Even if they want to act older, they still love physical affection. I found that the K1 kids wanted even more hugs and were all over me more than the CC class. Because I was able to have two-way conversations with the K1 class, I felt like I was truly able to bond with them and I could tell that I was gaining their trust. Just after one day with them, I genuinely feel like they see me as a friend.

Another thing I took the lead on was introducing the letter D for the K1 class to practice writing. It was a bit hard to get them to pay attention to me because they kept wanting to joke around. Some students really struggled with the curvature of the Dd shape, but others really impressed me. Some of them had a very hard time writing their own names, so Mr. Ricky let me know that sometimes he will trace their name first so they can use it as a reference. They got so excited once they were finished and received a stamp on their paper from Ms. Daniella.

Wednesday, October 5th

Today was a really fun day because we had a special birthday in the K1 class! It was Ema’s birthday, so we held a birthday party at the end of the day, where her parents even came to celebrate and read a Japanese children’s book to the whole class. Students in other classes were even excited to celebrate Ema’s birthday! The K2 class came and sang happy birthday to her and gave her some adorable birthday hugs.

In the morning, Mr. Gian let me know that I would be doing phonics with the K1 class as well as the recap at the end of the day. I was really excited to go over phonics, because teaching phonics is already part of my expertise. I finally felt like I could be useful in the teaching atmosphere and not just follow directions or assist watching to make sure the GG kids weren’t misbehaving. Today’s lesson was about mass production, so Mr. Gian showed a short video of sweet treats, like candy bars and ice cream, being mass produced in a factory. Then, we did an activity to reinforce what they learned. All of the GG kids were excited to discover that we would be making choco bananas! Each table was a station: peeling, cutting, skewering, dipping, and decorating. I thought this was a genius idea for the students to learn about mass production by being a part of a system themselves.

When I was doing phonics, I tried to get the class to think of words on their own that started with the letters of the alphabet we were going through in order, but it was hard for them to pay attention. I also didn’t realize I had less time than I expected, so I had to go a bit quicker through the second half of the alphabet. Also, during the recap, a lot of kids were very tired and weren’t sitting properly or looking at me. Only 3 students were engaged: Ririka, Kanoha, and Kyrie. Ms. Daniella even had to talk to them because they were hardly paying attention. I was really happy that all of the K1 class seemed to really like me, but it made teaching them harder because they kept interrupting me and asking silly questions whenever I was trying to teach them. I also realized that the K1 class is not meant to play nearly as much as the CC class. Whenever I let them tackle me and mess around, Mr. Ricky asked them to return to their seats. I felt bad that since I didn’t know, I had let them think that their playful behavior was okay in the K1 class. I was also surprised to discover that the K1 class doesn’t get nap time because many of them fall asleep during their quiet time when the lights are off and their heads are down. I originally thought it was nap time, but Mr. Gian got upset at the class because many of them fell asleep.

Monday, October 17th

Today was honestly quite boring. Most of the day I was waiting around or watching a lesson. For most of the day, I felt like a student and couldn’t really do much except watch the lesson or accompany someone to the bathroom.

I had some fun doing phonics with Mr. Leandro but it was very short and the kids didn’t seem to really understand vowels and couldn’t read words aloud like snap or pin. We walked to KK park, but it started raining more, so we came back to the school and played at the treehouse. I had lots of fun playing with the kids and their toys, as always. Once they finished with play time, it was time for lunch and my break. After my break, Ms. Daniela did a fun yoga/stretching activity with the kids and I joined in with them. After this activity, I read a book for story time. It was very difficult for the students to get in a rainbow and lots of them were calling out while I was reading. Some kids kept coming up to me or raising their hand to say that they liked something, which was tough to avert. Once story time was over, Mr. Gian showed a video about robots and then did a little demonstration with a cool robot he made that would climb across string with its arms. We also had fun with it crawling. Many kids were falling asleep, so I had a few get up and drink some water to wake them up. Then, I led our writing lesson for the letter E. I found it very difficult for the students to even write their names. They got distracted coloring in the eggs at the top of the page or just stared at it for a while. It was only until I traced their names for them that they started writing. Many students took a long time to finish and were slow getting stamped before going to the bathroom and brushing their teeth to get ready for snack time. After snack, Mr. Gian showed a video about climate change. The students colored pictures of nature but sad to relate to climate change. Then, I did a recap and counted the rainbow sticks with the students so they could pack up.

Wednesday, October 19th

I prepared the lesson for rainstorms. There is going to be a science experiment and then I cut construction paper to make clouds by gluing cotton onto paper and adding sequins as raindrops.

Mr. Gian started the morning by going over the date, as usual, and then today’s weather. The students still aren’t able to read the days, but most can distinguish today, yesterday, and tomorrow once they know what the day is today.

In Ms. Daniela’s phonics lesson today, Ms. Carmeli joined us. We went over short words again with the vowels i and a. Every student picked a card from Daniela’s hands and had to spell and say the word aloud. It was interesting how once they had to say it on their own, they read it wrong even after just repeating it. Ms. Carmeli had a fun activity where 2 students competed to find the word she said. We had 3 similar words (sat, pat, tap) on the ground, and once she said the word, they had to use fly swatters and hot the correct word. Many students chose the wrong word, which was surprising, but still adorable.

Today, we went to K park. Mr. Gian and Ms. Daniela stayed at GG. One student cut in line and many kids got upset, so I removed him and had him go last. Mr. Leandro and Ms. Carmeli came with me to the park and one of the students held my hand the whole time, except when we crossed the street. They all really wanted to “be monster” like Mr. Leandro when they saw him take his arms out of his sleeves and run around with them.

Mr. Gian had a really fun activity where he showed the students the flags of many different Asian countries and they called o it which country it belonged to. I was very impressed because I didn’t know some of the flags. Then, he had two students competed against each other by showing a flag and having them press a button to say the answer and get a point for their team. I thought it was funny that the kids didn’t fully understand that each side had its own button, and everyone was tapping the same one no matter which side they were on.

At 3 PM, we had a fire drill and two men from the Tokyo Fire Department came. Some kids were scared because they thought it was real, but they did a very good job overall of cooperating. The lesson on how to use a fire extinguisher was in Japanese and it was really cool to hear how much more talkative they were in Japanese.

Then, I got to teach my lesson on rain and how rain develops. The students didn’t seem very interested, but they liked the experiment Mr. Gian found for me to do and they made awesome crafts! Many of them had trouble with using the glue sticks because they were pressing too hard. Lots of them also got their hands very sticky and got frustrated while trying to add the sequins as rain, so teachers had to step in.

The GG kids paid much more attention to Mr. Gian’s recap. Maybe this was because he had them sitting in their seats instead of on the ground. He made his recap very interactive and almost everyone was participating!

Monday, October 24th

The first thing I did this morning was that I built a monkey robot! I did this in the library so the K1 students couldn’t see, but then some K2 students found me and grew very curious. I wasn’t bothered at all by their questions and I let some of them help me out. This made it take longer, but they were really excited to be given something to do to help. Then, we danced to “More, More, More” and “Follow Jesus Christ” songs to get the K1 kids up and moving. After dancing, Mr. Gian took attendance and went over the calendar and weather. Many students still cannot read the days of the week. Once we finished up with that, the K1 class rehearsed their Halloween song with Ms. Daniela playing the ukulele. It was so cute and it was awesome to see Ms. Daniela playing.

Next was language arts, so we did phonics. Since the students kept getting distracted, Ms. Daniela split everyone into two groups and I was able to teach half of the group on my own. We had words with short A and I sounds, like “tap” and “sit.” Most of them weren’t able to read the words or individual letters on their own even if they were able to repeat them out loud. First, I covered the letters on either side of the vowel and had the students say the name of the letter and then the sound it made (A, ah). Once they did that, I uncovered the letters one at a time and had them repeat the same structure aloud (S, A, sa/A, T, at). After that, I would uncover the whole word, so they would say, “A, ah, sat.”

Park time is always after language arts. Once the K1 students return to the classroom, they receive their rainbow sticks and then are able to get their things for the park. Lots of students struggled w putting their raincoat on because of the buttons or zipper, but it was adorable to see them get excited about showing off their raincoats. This was the first time I stayed at GG during park time. I made another monkey robot, which took much less time because I didn’t have any children around me, and I organized more student papers into the portfolio. Once I finished, I didn’t have much to do, and I heard many kids from the AA/BB class crying, so I checked and offered my help. Ms. Akino accepted my help with AA/BB diapers and clothing changes. It turned out to be more difficult than I expected because many of them were especially restless, but I didn’t mind at all. I really miss the AA/BB class no matter how restless they can be.

After my break, Ms. Daniela did more yoga with the class and added a mountain pose. Mr. Gian made an awesome tree with fall leaves for the classroom for fall and added it to the front of the room. Then, I did writing practice again for the letter F. This time, I drew stroke order with a green dot for the start of the stroke with my usual arrow at end because the curve is a bit trickier. Many kids did not want to practice writing and it was hard to get them to finish their worksheets. Once we did writing, Mr. Gian taught a lesson about the 3 R’s and then they have an activity placing certain materials in the right R category. Many of the students got it wrong, but it was cool to see they had some capability of understanding a complex concept at their age. During play time at the end of the day, Ms. Daniela gave me half of the papers for me to “grade,” which I really loved doing.

Tuesday, October 25th

Today, I spent the morning with Ms. Daniela instead of Mr. Gian. The kids took a very long time to get ready today and were very tired. I think it also didn’t help that half of the class had not yet arrived from Fudomae. I decided to sit at one of the tables and do my makeup and talk to the kids to do something new and fun. They were excited and would say how their mommy would do the same thing as they watched me and played with their toys. I want to do more things with them and teach them new words they would likely never learn so early on in the classroom, like mirror or lipstick.

As usual, Mr. Gian took attendance and went over the calendar and weather. When Mr. Gian asked what the name of next month is, only one student knew. Then, we played a couple songs for dancing. After they danced, they rehearsed pure imagination again and focused on a specific verse. Following rehearsal was rainbow sticks, which leads into language arts. I was with Ms. Daniella and Ms. Carmeli again and we reviewed vowels. Ms. Carmeli took the lead today, and I really liked her teaching style. She makes the lessons very engaging and fun for the students, and makes the concepts much easier for them to understand. For example, to distinguish what a letter of the alphabet is called versus its sound, she asked Ms. Daniela and I for our names, then asked what our sound was. This made it much more comprehensible for the students to understand that all letters have a name as well as a sound.

Three students misbehaved, so I was able to observe how the K1 teachers go about treating misbehavior. When everyone came back from language arts, their names were written on the whiteboard. As a punishment, Mr. Gian had them explain that they drew on the desks and lied about it to the class. Then they had to wash the pencil off of the desks while the rest of the class got to do something fun. After, he asked them to move their places in the class prize path to zero.

Wednesday, October 26th

Today was a very low-energy day because I felt like everything I did was wrong. I decided to do my makeup again during morning playtime, and the kids were having fun watching me, but I was told not to do it anymore and I felt bad that I didn’t realize initially that it seemed unprofessional and reflected poorly on Mr. Gian. Later, some students got in trouble for putting their crafts in their bag, so when one of the students was coming to the bathroom holding hers I told her to put it over the lockers while she went to the bathroom and then put it in the bag, but Mr. Gian had actually told her to put it away first, so she got told off because of me. During the performance a student was falling asleep, so I asked them to drink some water, and then another student asked to get water because they were feeling too hot. However, when he got the bottle, he also got in trouble. Then, I was on my phone because I was writing my journal while the students were waiting in the library and I was in the back of the room, but it looked like I was just distracted.

When morning play time finished, many students came up to me and told me to come to Ema at the lockers. It turned out that she had wet herself and had gotten it on the floor. I asked everyone standing around to finish packing because they kept staring and I could see Ema was very embarrassed. Some kids walked by and made fun of her, so I briefly talked to them about how that wasn’t nice as well. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a change of clothes, so we borrowed some from GG. Once she took her wet clothing off, I asked her to wash her hands before putting on the fresh ones, and she refused because it was the BB/CC sink. After some more attempts to tell her it wasn’t clean, I told her we could do it together, and then she finally agreed. I actually felt more useful being able to help Ema as opposed to sitting and watching during attendance and the calendar/weather time.

After I helped Ema, the class had just finished dancing and Mr. Gian moved onto rehearsing pure imagination. It was obvious that they still didn’t really know the words, and he was going to move onto another song, but Ms. Daniela suggested that they do it again instead of switching. Next, there was language arts with Ms. Daniela. I liked the activity, which was naming letters and their sounds, then categorizing them into consonants and vowels. The following activity had letters and pictures of objects that started with one of the letters. However, it was especially difficult this morning because almost no students were not paying attention. I wish there was another standard solution for when no one is listening because it seems like a lot of wasted effort for the teacher when every child is completely distracted.

I went to the park today with Mr. Jordan, who I’ve never had anything with, and Mr. Leandro. In our circle before playtime, many students kept repeating rules. They also slurred all of the teachers’ names, so we slowed it down one by one. Playtime was especially fun for the kids because the K2 and K3 classes came shortly after.

The last thing we did today before pickup playtime was a full run through of the winter performance: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I didn’t really know what to do during the practice before the large rehearsal because there were some small acting parts and only Mr. Gian and Ms. Daniela knew what they were, so I sat behind the students and watched. The K1 class was only in 2 scenes out of 10, so we mostly watched. When it was time for the class to get ready, they lined up in the library and I stayed in the audience to cheer them on and film while they performed. They looked so adorable and they sounded better than ever before. Since rehearsal went into play time, we had to get them changed quickly to go home.

Thursday, October 27th

Today, we spent all morning rehearsing for the winter performance. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just sat with them and tried to make sure they were sitting nicely and being quiet enough while the K2 and K3 students were rehearsing their scenes. The K1 class was very restless because they weren’t on until scene 7, so there was a lot of time sitting still. I felt bad for them waiting so long. I tried to just enjoy watching the rehearsal and had some students sit on my lap while we were waiting. It was the first time I got to see any of the performances even though I had heard the other classes singing their songs for the past month, so it was cool to see the dances to go along with them.

I got to meet Chihiro, the music teacher, for the first time, and she was absolutely delightful! I realized that all of the music recordings for the show were made by her, so I was very impressed with that. Seeing her play the keyboard and workshopping each number with the students made me really miss musical performance.

During the final number, “Pure Imagination,” the teachers adjusted the K2 and K3 class to squat while K1 sang the first part. When the teachers were explaining the difference between sitting and squatting, many of them could not understand because squatting in Asian countries is very close to the floor, so it looks like sitting. Most of them were in the correct position with their feet flat on the ground and legs bent at an acute angle, but their bums were touching the floor instead of hovering.

Monday, October 31st

Today was one of the most fun days yet at GGIS because it was Halloween! I discovered that the K1 class was going trick-or-treating because they were all colouring images to put on their white paper candy bags. All of the students had such amazing costumes, and I got to borrow a blue Teletubby costume from GG. I was so surprised how none of the kids knew what my costume was. Some even thought I was a Pikmin from the video game.

Instead of going to the park, we went trick-or-treating to the designated shops. It was such a blast! At each shop, they all said, “Hello, we are GGIS. Happy Halloween!” They all behaved so well and were very polite at each shop. We went to seven different stores, and then Ms. Daniela and I added more candy to their bags so that everyone had 10 pieces.

At 2 PM, we went downstairs to the senior living home to perform our Halloween song. They all loved it and it was really cool to hear the kids speak Japanese again. It will never cease to amaze me how different they can be once they switch to Japanese. I also got to practice some Japanese with the staff and some of the residents, so that was especially exciting.

After visiting the senior living home, Mr. Gian taught a lesson about traffic signs. It was funny to see them all try to interpret the images. At the end of the day, I got to check their backpacks, as usual, and Ms. Daniela gave me candy to put in their bags. It was especially easy to check them because they didn’t bring their GG shirts due to them all wearing costumes! I really love checking their bags at the end of the day because I get to be silly with them and I actually feel useful even if I’m not teaching.

Wednesday, November 2nd

I came in this morning with lots of energy and I felt very happy that I now knew exactly what to do when I arrived. I prepared three containers of toys, the circular trays, and a coloring book. It took a while for the Fudomae students to arrive, so they didn’t get as much play time in the morning, which made them very restless.

A new student joined us today and her name is Rinze! She is very quiet though and does not listen to directions well. I believe she is not as advanced as the rest of the class yet. It took some extra help for her to get ready because she hasn’t gotten the hang of the steps yet. I made sure that even when I helped her, it was more of a collaboration. For example, when it was time to put her water bottle away, I explained the teams and asked her the colour of her team. Instead of telling her to simply put the bottle in the crate of the left, I told her that her bottle goes in the crate with the matching colour.

At the end of our park time rules circle, one of the teachers said “no phones for teachers,” but I knew it was mainly for me. Every single day I have been at the school—for the past week—someone new is telling me to not be on my phone even though I am only using it to take pictures or notes. Now, I am worried about just taking a quick picture. I don’t enjoy feeling like I am under a microscope and that every time I may slip up someone will always be watching. If I am ever on my phone, it is because I double check that it is a good time to briefly write something down or because I want to take a picture for my internship course. It seems unreasonable to expect me to not look for something productive to do when I do not do much except watch lessons and occasionally accompany students to the bathroom.

On the way home from the park, we had 2 shoe alerts right before a road, so half of the class was with Mr. Leandro and the other half with Mr. Jordan and myself. Once one of the students finished, she started to run into the street, but a car was coming and I immediately pulled her back as gently as possible. I noticed that students always say it is safe to go without turning their heads at all, and this was a more scary example of that. Before we crossed, I made sure all of the students looked left, then right, the behind before we put our hands up and joined the rest of the class across the street.

Wednesday, November 2nd

(Yes, I know this isn't October anymore, but it's the same week so I put it in this post.)

I came in this morning with lots of energy and I felt very happy that I now knew exactly what to do when I arrived. I prepared three containers of toys, the circular trays, and a coloring book. It took a while for the Fudomae students to arrive, so they didn’t get as much play time in the morning, which made them very restless.

A new student joined us today and her name is Rinze! She is very quiet though and does not listen to directions well. I believe she is not as advanced as the rest of the class yet. It took some extra help for her to get ready because she hasn’t gotten the hang of the steps yet. I made sure that even when I helped her, it was more of a collaboration. For example, when it was time to put her water bottle away, I explained the teams and asked her the colour of her team. Instead of telling her to simply put the bottle in the crate of the left, I told her that her bottle goes in the crate with the matching colour.

At the end of our park time rules circle, one of the teachers said “no phones for teachers,” but I knew it was mainly for me. Every single day I have been at the school—for the past week—someone new is telling me to not be on my phone even though I am only using it to take pictures or notes. Now, I am worried about just taking a quick picture. I don’t enjoy feeling like I am under a microscope and that every time I may slip up someone will always be watching. If I am ever on my phone, it is because I double check that it is a good time to briefly write something down or because I want to take a picture for my internship course. It seems unreasonable to expect me to not look for something productive to do when I do not do much except watch lessons and occasionally accompany students to the bathroom.

On the way home from the park, we had 2 shoe alerts right before a road, so half of the class was with Mr. Leandro and the other half with Mr. Jordan and myself. Once one of the students finished, she started to run into the street, but a car was coming and I immediately pulled her back as gently as possible. I noticed that students always say it is safe to go without turning their heads at all, and this was a more scary example of that. Before we crossed, I made sure all of the students looked left, then right, the behind before we put our hands up and joined the rest of the class across the street.