Kid Stories

I know I'm not posting very much, we are down to the final stretch on so many projects that I'm simply slammed.

So I have two stories to share: This weekend is Interactive Forum... not the summer one which is only the schools in our town, but the regional one which is all of the schools in the three big towns in the area.

It's also my last Forum.

My team manages to lose every year in the local, so the odds aren't so good for them to do anything interesting in the regional... But we'll try.

To make matters worse, Ms. Turtle, my team teacher, has once again taken over the Forum and, dispite all of my arguments, begun to have them memorize sentences.

(Break for those who are new to my blog); Interactive forum is the new "speach contest" here. They discovered that kids who performed in the Speach contests still couldn't say even their names in English, so they invented this; three kids from different schools are put in a triangle, given a topic (My Favorite person, My Dream, etc) and then they have 5 minutes to talk about that subject in English. They are judged on how natural their English is and how well they follow the conversation. It's brilliant!

Ms. Turtle has them write a whole bunch of sentences in Japanese, she translates them into (bad) English, and then they memorize them...

So, we go into forum and of course they are lost... The other kids talk about all kinds of things. The English isn't complex (Do you, Can you, Is your, My...), but since they learned "Do you like Cats? I have a cat named Pooky, he's cute but sometimes scary" as a whole unit, they can't break it down, so if another kid says "I think my teacher is scary" they don't understand... even though they are using vocabulary they have learned.

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Anyway, I end up spending most of my time "De-programing" them. Last night was our last practice (The Forum is on Sunday, and we have a City-Wide practice today with all of the MyCity folks). So I'm sitting there with Summer, Water and Mom's Girl, my three second years. Summer has been in this for a while now, and she and I have a repore about us (She actually is talking to me in English now... "Can I go to the Toilet?" etc!). I've talked about her before (Last year some time), and things with her have changed in school (She and Mr. Woods are at odds now), but she and I are still good.

Anway, I was drilling them on asking questions (One of our weak points) and they were cooking along when the conversation went along like this:

M: What is your favorite food?
S: I like hamburg...
(Me): Hamburger... "Hamburg" is a city in Germany. (Note: In Japanese, Salusbury Steak is called "Hamburg")
S: Ah! Hamburger.
(Me-Adding complications): I don't like Hamburger in Japan, they make it too sweet.
S,W,M: Eh?!
S: Too Sweet? Like candy?
(Me): Yep.
S:When I was in New Zealand, I ate Lamb... I didn't like it.
(Me): I don't like Lamb, either... (In Japanese) And during forum do that!!!!

I turn to the other girls; "See, that was totally natural and unplanned! THAT will get you points!"

The girls all nod knowingly.

I smile.

We will probably STILL lose, but at least Summer is starting to really kick butt.

Too bad she's turning into a little bit of a bad girl... She's starting to buck the system, which is why Mr. Woods is on her. We lost a girl last year (HatGirl, whom became pretty much a lost cause and was so bad that she almost didn't pass High School exams) because she went down this path... Mr. Woods' solution is to yell at her a lot... Which I advised against... but he's doing this the Japanese way...Strict and Disciplined... Unfortunately, I think Summer is cracking under years of oppression to do the right thing and not make mistakes, so adding more pressure may be a bad idea. I fear she'll go the way of HatGirl (From last year) anyway.

Well, in about 3 hours, we'll see if Summer can even stand up to MyTown... much less MyArea...

---Me