Monday;
I taught a small class at 8 in the morning. Since I wanted to print some handouts, I went to the teachers’ room. As usual, I hadn’t met any teachers there. So I left there once I finished photocopying handouts. They were three Japanese poems that I wanted to use in composition class. It was for educational purpose in classroom. So I don’t think there would be a copyright issue. The rest of the day was spent for making PPT that was to be used in the listening classes of the 1st grade.
Tuesday;
No class, but I worked all day. PPT makings were for listening classes of 1st grade and for composition classes of 2nd grade. I practiced the class teaching in the early evening with measuring time.
Wednesday;
There were two classes in morning. I was making PPT for composition classes in the rest of the day. I could not finish it.
Thursday;
I started making PPT at 6a.m. I could finish it at 8, and then I started editing audio data for listening course. There were two classes in the afternoon. When the first class was over, I forgot to take my USB thumb drive off from the computer. I got to know it when I started the second class. Since the classrooms are in the different buildings and it is a little bit far to take it back by myself, I asked two male students to go get my USB memory. I think it was better for them to spend several minutes outside because they don’t like the class.
Friday;
The morning class became even smaller. There were only four students. I asked them to do a debate by two by two. One pair like doing sport outside or gymnasium that is real sport, and another pair like doing video game that is not real sport. Their proficiency for utterance was still not good to make discussion. So debate was not going well. After the class, I edited audio data for listening and evaluated some students’ composition. I taught a composition class in the early evening. They still feel it difficult to distinguish transitive verbs and intransitive verbs of Japanese. I got back my residence and kept working by 10 p.m. for submitted homework compositions.
Saturday;
I evaluated compositions of two classes in the morning. It was a disappointment that one third of one class didn’t follow my direction. I thought it was not easy nor fun to the students to write a composition by reading short Tanka poems on the text book. So I prepared three nice poems that would made it easy to write their impression. We read three poems in the classroom and were moved by them. But one third of students ignored three poems and wrote their impressions to Tanka on the textbook. Actually those students are below average. Perhaps my communications skill was not good for them.
I went to a grocery store when I ate my lunch. I made proofreading and correction very much in detail for three students in the afternoon. When I stopped working, it was 9p.m.
Sunday;
I made teaching materials by my computer all day. It was like from 7a.m. to 10p.m. I went outside lunch time only.
I just recalled what one man said to me seven years ago. He said, “a guy’s life is like you worked and worked, then you realize that you are already in 60’s”.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 