School - 26th September

Not much to talk about for school. Today, I was in 1/2 a class talking about rules in High Schools in New Zealand.

"You Must Not wear jewellery" "You Must wear a uniform"

type talk. We're learning Must and Must Not at the moment. Only thing is, that they can't really understand me anyway, so I say it and then my JTE translates it.

That's how it normally goes. I would like to challenge the way they teach here, but don't think it would go down very well and nothing would change so there doesn't seem to be much point. This lesson was quite good when it comes to the English Lessons anyway, normally it's straight from the textbook with me reading out the stories line-by-line for the kids to repeat, memorise and say back to me; then reviewing the new words they have learnt. At least this one they needed to think about the meanings of the words Must and Must Not. Apart from this 30 minutes, I have only got one other lesson at the primary school across the road - the lesson today is on "What is this, What is that?" and "What do you like?" which is a bit more fun. They think I'm a clown that comes in and entertains them for an hour - so I act like one, jumping up and down and getting them to as well - reckon more English seeps into them that way anyway!

So considering that I only have 1 1/2 hours of actual class time, and then factoring about 1 hour of preparation time, I have about 5 1/2 hours of doing nothing that is related to teaching children English. Hence my blog entry.

This is me working at Tomioka Schools - 26th September 2007.