Back to School

I haven't written much about the job, that's because it's mostly awful. Actually, I enjoy the teaching part, but I have an average of 2.5 classes per day, which leaves about 5 hours that I have to be at school or the Board of Education Office, usually with absolutely no work to do. So the boredom that I wrote about in my first post has been pretty consistent, just the place where I'm sitting around doing nothing has changed. Which leads me to my second issue with the job. I go to a different school every two weeks! I mentioned this schedule before, but at the time I really didn't know what it would be like. It has meant that it is difficult to follow where they are in the English curriculum, it's nearly impossible to have relationships with teachers, and it's actually impossible to get to know any students.

But, this post is not meant to be focused on complaints (that might come another time) but to highlight an exception! This week was the first of the school year, which runs from April until March, and I was at Nishi Joyo Junior High School for the first time. The first few days don't have any regular classes and are full of preparations and ceremonies, so I didn't expect to have much to do all week. I was pleasantly surprised to have 5 classes scheduled in the second half of the week and almost shocked that the lead English teacher had some assignments for me on the first day!

The most exciting of which was decorating an empty classroom that will now be the English room for 2nd grade students (corresponds to 8th grade in the US). I'm hoping to add more but here's what I have so far. (I had a lot of fun with the months and the weather!)

The pictures on these days of the week are too light, oops!

I'm planning to add information about which countries speak English.

On the left there are current 10-day forecasts for Seattle and Kyoto. The weather signs are cut from construction paper.