Last day of School

I taught my last two classes of the school year today. It's the most I've taught in the past two weeks here at the Junior High. With the Grade 8 class, I was given free reign. Anything I wanted, with the stipulation that it be fun and involve English.

I tried an English Scavenger Hunt game -- low preparation time and lots of speaking on the part of the students. And a good review of everything they're done this year. I made up a worksheet with a dozen questions involving the grammar the students have learned this year. The idea is that the students line up and choose a question from the list for the teacher to ask them. If they answer correctly, they get a signature. If not, they line up and try again. Every student had to ask at least three questions (one of each teacher). If they failed, I had a series of penalties for them to perform. I should have made it more difficult, because nobody had to do the penalties. Too bad -- I love subjecting students to tongue twisters.

With the Grade 7 class, I was the victim of a Quiz Show modelled after "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?". Each student made up a trivia question for me -- things like "What is tsukue in English?" (desk), or "Does Yuma like melons?" (No, he doesn't). It was really hard, especially questions like "What does so-and-so like?" and "Does so-and-so play baseball?". It showed me that I really don't know my students all that well and I should be getting more involved at the school next year. In my defense, they are a very quiet class. I was happy to do better than I thought I would, mostly because my students don't think I speak any Japanese.

Right now, everyone else is cleaning up the school for the end of the year. I'm a bit sad, because I've finally heard the final list of everyone who will be leaving. It seems that it will be just about everyone. The only person left in my group of desks in the teachers' office is my downstairs neighbor -- the one who doesn't like me and doesn't talk to me. I live above him and work across from him, and we generally just ignore each other. Also, the vice principal, another really cool guy, will be going to Kamifurano. I was asked to write short messages to each of the teachers who will be leaving. I'll miss my JTE the most. Not only is she an excellent teacher, we've become pretty good friends. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit her at her new posting in Shanghai. That's right, she's moving to China to teach at a Japanese international school.

This evening is the year-end/farewell enkai. I'm getting a ride to Asahikawa with my JTE with a stop at the big BOE there. Maybe I can go harass the anti-social Asahikawa JETs.

The enkai is supposed to be fun, but I'm not really looking forward to it. For one, I'm still feeling yucky with my ugly, snotty cold. And for another, I'm sad to say goodbye to all of these people that I've become friends with. And it's snowing outside, but what else is new?

Happy Friday everyone!