The day the 2nd years beat the 3rd years...

This is a long story. Go get some cocoa, sit back, turn on some music, and relax, `cause we are going to be here for a bit…

This story started way back in week three or so, when Mr. 2nd year decided to break his English classes into three parts: Slow, Medium, and Fast. He took the Slow class, Ms. 1st year took the Medium class, and Ms. Team Teacher and I were given the Fast class. The amazing thing is; He let them choose. This may sound like a natural thing for us Americans, but for Japan, that is mostly unheard of (In fact, this rather freaked out the PTA a bit, and we dodged the bullet on that one… read previous post for more information on the disposition of the PTA…)

Ms. Team Teacher is a nice lady, but she has a very, very soft voice. I can’t speak Japanese yet (Not enough to command a class of rambunctious teenagers, anyway), thus we make a great team (I am very good at “LOUD”.).

Shortly thereafter, Ms. 3rd year decided to join suit, and suddenly I had a bunch of Fast 3rd years followed by a batch of Fast 2nd years as the last two periods of the day on Wednesday.

Woah… I had my own class (Mostly)… I was jazzed!

Until the first week. Ms. 1st year set us up with a gazillion worksheets to fill out. And announces that she will be teaching the 3rd year Fast class… Which meant that both Fast classes were boring as hell… Actually Hell is probably more interesting than that first class ended up being… It was awful.

So, the next class I decide we are going to play a game in 2nd year Fast class… at least Ms. Team Teacher is all about it.

I design this game in which a series of toy cars (With magnets on them, so they stick to the blackboard) “race” around a track drawn on the board. I roll a very large, fuzzy die, the children answer questions in English, and I move the car that number of spaces around the track.

It took most of the class to finish the worksheets that Ms. 1st year assigned us… so by the time I explained the rules of the game to the children, the bell rang and class was over.

So that’s two strikes against my teaching of my own class…

Then, the following week, Ms. Team Teacher gets sick and has to go home at noon. Suddenly, I’m the only one teaching the class…. To make it more interesting, Ms. 1st year has decided to leave both Fast classes to us… so now I’m teaching both classes.

I actually, for the first time since I started this job, operated a class exactly as my company trained me to do…

I tossed the dice to a kid, He had to say the number the die read (In English, of course), then toss it to another kid, who did the same thing, then tossed it to another kid, and so on… then I said “Color” and they had to read the color of the face of the die. Then after our warm up, we went right into the lesson, all in English. My 3rd years took some time warming up, but they got there, and then we went into the game.

My 2nd year girls are dangerous, they beat the boys by a mile… 3rd years didn’t fare so well simply because they needed to have the instructions explained to them and all…

It was rough, but it was my first game, and the first time I actually did what I am supposed to do.

This week I had a doosie. You see, yesterday was the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and in his honor I made the Sherlock Holmes game.

Here’s how it went:

I stand in front of the classroom: “Last night at 10:00PM the Museum was robbed and a necklace was stolen.” I hand out a sheet of paper with 4 suspects’ pictures on it, “These four people are suspected of being the culprit.” I had out a series of clue pages, with “Interviews” from various people giving clues to whodunit. There are 4 different pages of clues, and you need all 4 to figure out who did it. So the kids are going to have to work together…

This is the setup (ALL in English, mind you):

Suspects:

1) Mike Brown, Age 30, Car: Red Van
2) Sally Green, Age 25, Car: White Van
3) Ben Smith, Age 20, Car: Blue Van
4) Judy Taylor, Age 33, Car: Black Van

Here are the clues:

1)A yellow van with spots was at the museum from 7PM to 10PM
2) (This was a trick question) a Blue van was at the museum last night from 7PM to 10PM.
3) A Brown van was at the museum from 7AM to 10AM
4) Judy Taylor was at the Museum last night.
5) The Brown Van is now red
6) The yellow van with spots is now white
7) A Black Van was at the Museum from 6PM to 8PM
8) The purple van is now blue
9) Judy Taylor is at the Stadium
10) Sally Green is at the Library
11) A purple van was at the museum from 3PM to 7PM
12) Ben Smith is at the school
13) Mike Brown is at the Airport
14) (This is the other half of the trick question) The woman with the cat (#2) is lying.

There were two “Picture” clues as well; a high-heel shoe found at the scene, and a photo taken of the museum depicting a polka-dotted van sitting in front of the museum at 10:00PM.

Now, the goal of the game is to “Arrest” the culprit. So I laid out 4 envelopes, marked Library, School, Airport and Stadium. And they had little badges I made for them (Which said “Fast Class Detective” embossed on a picture of a shiny deputy’s star… I’m still a Graphic Artist in my soul). When they figured it out, they had to put their badge in the correct envelope.

The grammar point here is the conversion of the “Be” verb (Is Are Am, was were, Will Be, etc). Hence the changing of the van colors and having to arrest someone now…

Okay, so I show this to Mr. 2nd year and he starts laughing…

“I think that’s too difficult.” He says, “But you should do it anyway! It’ll be fun!” (Did I mention I love this guy?)

I’m heartened by this, so I go into my 3rd year Fast class.

They suck at it… it’s awful. One cluster of girls gets the correct answer and then everyone figures out which folder the girls put their badges in and it was a rush to the front of the class to put the badges in the right folder…

Now, in my defense, it was 5th period (The one right after lunch), and this is the first day back to school for my first years since they went to Kyoto… So they were not into school at all…

Then it was time for my 2nd years.

They get right on the puzzle…

Learning from the earlier mess, I kept the folders with me, and asked them which folder they wanted, when they said which one, I opened the folder and let them put their badge in…

Every single one of my 2nd years translated the text (Exactly as it is written above), and then unraveled the puzzle.

And I’ll be darned if they all didn’t get it exactly right. Every single one of them.

Take that, Ms. 1st year when you say these kids aren't advanced enough.

I am so proud of my 2nd year Fast class (I’d be proud of my 3rd years too, but they were sleeping this round out).

Ah… well, it was too difficult… but, apparently my kids were totally up to the challenge.

Here's the kicker: the 2nd years loved it and want to do another one...

So, I made a game that was too hard, they did it anyway, and they want me to do it to them again...

My kids are just cool.

---Me.