Welcome to high school

So currently I am home watching some (dare I say) Women's World Cup action right now. I was pondering on what to write today. I will give you a rundown of my class schedule. I currently have 15 classes. Three of these classes are *ichi-nen sei (freshman). I have three *san-nen sei (seniors) classes and one *ni-nen sei class. I also have a PTA(parent teacher association) class on Wednesday afternoon. All in all I have some pretty good students. Many of my students have very little English ability so you could imagine our conversations. I have learned the wonder of gestures.

Today I had a class of ni-nen sei. Last week my JTE and I gave them a small English quiz, which involved filling in blanks of sentences. For example *On my summer vacation I _____________________. We checked grammar and spelling. For a reward to the two highest grades, we told the class that those two students will get to chat with me outside in the hall for 15 minutes, while the class goes over the quiz. It was great to hear the gasp!!!! of the students when they found this out. I know for sure it will be a motivator to do well in class. The students (especially the girls) were so jealous of the two students that were picked. I'm hoping to do some more cool things like this soon.

I made up a somewhat crazy idea to do with all my students today. I wanted to incorporate music into my lessons. So I decided that I would create a cd with about 12-14 songs on it. I would make copies for all the students. I want to make an English challenge for them. I picked all American music and not very popular music that is fed to them on CRAP MTV!!!! Every week I will give them a song to listen to. I will first write the name of the song on the board. I will then have the kids write a short description of what the song is about. Afterwards I will give them the lyrics with certain words blanked out, for example verbs, adjectives, compounds, nouns ETC. I will give them all week to listen to the song and try to fill in the blanks. They will give them to me in the teachers room or class. The person or persons that have the best score each week from each class will get a treat (of some sort). I really hope this goes as planned. It will be tons of work for me but I think this will be a great opportunity to do something fun. It will also give them the chance to hear new and good music, but challenge them in listening and comprehension. Let me know what you think!! I'm excited, I have about 3 weeks to prepare everything so it should be all good I guess. If it goes well I might want to create a music exchange club or world music club. To talk about music, and listen to new and undiscovered music from around the world. Damn I have so many ideas haha

Today is the first day in Osaka that it has been raining as hell all day for me. Riding back home from school was interesting because I was getting drenched while every one else on their granny bikes (with umbrella holders on them) were good. I didn't care though, I like rain! I'm from EL PASO!!! :) Speaking of bicycles, when I first started to ride my bike, I would try and be all courteous to my fellow bike riders and let them pass and such. Now I just fly by all the grannies and tell them to move over in English. It's actually quite funny. I'm trying to think of how to make a video of my bike ride to school in the morning without the risk of destroying my camera. Anyway, I hope this blog finds you all well where ever you are. I'm starting to get the hang of the whole BLOG thing. For some more antics visit my friend Patricks blog (the link is in the right side). Have a great day and I will talk to you soon. Comment please if you wish. Ja-ne bye bye