小学校｜しょうがっこう｜Shougakkou = little school
Primary Objective: Practice Speaking Japanese with Elementary students
Secondary Objective: Teach a bit of English to Elementary students
The teacher's had us start preparing about a week in advance. Everyone got divided up into various groups based on a combo of 取り引き|listening comprehension skills, compatibility, and speaking skills. Surprisingly the younger the kids, the more skill it takes to teach and comprehend whats going on in the classroom, however the younger the students the more necessary it became to use simpler Japanese.
We got a huuuge welcome from the entire school. The band even played the Star Wars theme (can you believe that thing is still being spread throughout the world 20 years later...).
I ended up with a class of mixed ages with various handicaps. The kids were fun, had great senses of humor, and were icons of innocence. They ranged from quiet/silent to outgoing and loud. There was a very cute girl who would do her best to sit next to me; she spoke very little but was eager to hear me speak and instead repeatedly "遊ぼう！" = Asobou = let's play!
I had created flashcards intending to teach them how to play charades but the teacher had prepped some pretty impressive picture herself so we ended up using those instead and reading "The hungry caterpillar" except in Japanese : ). This being no exception, most of the classwork was synced with pictures & music. I'm not sure if thats a common practice in the US, but I was impressed. I hadn't seen a piano in a classroom at any point in my life other than in the "music room" in all 3 of the elementary school's I attended in Florida. The kids seemed to pick things up very quickly that way and surprised me over and over again especially since they knew a few words in English that I had no clue how to say in Japanese. It was nice to learn from the same kids I came to teach.
During lunch time, I spent most of the time talking with an extremely energetic kids that I still feel doubtful as to whether he truly has a handicap. I'm not doctor, but he was a fluent speaker, energetic, had no physical abnormalities, and his kanji was way better than mine... Needless to say he and I sustained a conversation throughout the 30mins or so allotted for lunch.
Leaving was probably the hardest part of that experience. I felt bad after establishing relations with the kids only to quickly run off and leave them feeling a bit abandoned--or at least, I felt like I was abandoning them. The teacher had to help, literally detach a few from me as I departed. In the end, I felt more like a father than a teacher/student.
