Nothing exciting has happened lately, so I haven't felt the need to blog. It's been incredibly busy at work and I'm turning into one of those stereotypical Japanese teachers who work until 7pm. For those that point out that I'm allowed to come in whenever I want as long as I make it before my first class... My new spring schedule starts at 9:30 every day so I pretty much have to go in "on time." Ugh.
Disclaimer: the following story is a little...vulgar. Obscene? I can't think of the right adjective, but whatever.
So the past few weeks I've been teaching kids how to take notes. Y'know, leave big spaces, only write important words, write the short form of words, etc. That sort of thing. I'm constantly amazed that kids will write things like "twenty-one" in their notes instead of "21."
The next lesson, I gave a Show & Tell speech about Canada. Students will be making their own show & tell speech, so it was kind of a demonstration for them. I talked about how Canada is a very big country, how it's multicultural, and how the weather is kinda cold in the winter. Kids are shocked when they think I say it's -14 degrees, but then I'm like "no, you silly kids, listen up - it's -40!! ForTY, not fourTEEN!!" Anyway, after that class, I'd collected their notebooks to see that they were developing good note-taking habits like what I'd taught them the previous week.
While checking notes, I saw that one student made up their own short form.
They wrote, "Canada is a very big cunt." (excuse the language, but I'm quoting here)
This kid gets an E for effort, since they did try to only write the short form of the word, however, I don't quite think that's an appropriate abbreviation for "country."
I was a little shocked, and I snickered to myself but didn't bring it up to any other teacher since I doubt any of them would know what it meant. I did, however, spread it to whoever happened to be on Googletalk at the time. I just let the whole thing go because the student tried and I'd get in even more trouble if I even bothered to explain it.
And that, my friends, is all I have to report from J-land.
Disclaimer: the following story is a little...vulgar. Obscene? I can't think of the right adjective, but whatever.
So the past few weeks I've been teaching kids how to take notes. Y'know, leave big spaces, only write important words, write the short form of words, etc. That sort of thing. I'm constantly amazed that kids will write things like "twenty-one" in their notes instead of "21."
The next lesson, I gave a Show & Tell speech about Canada. Students will be making their own show & tell speech, so it was kind of a demonstration for them. I talked about how Canada is a very big country, how it's multicultural, and how the weather is kinda cold in the winter. Kids are shocked when they think I say it's -14 degrees, but then I'm like "no, you silly kids, listen up - it's -40!! ForTY, not fourTEEN!!" Anyway, after that class, I'd collected their notebooks to see that they were developing good note-taking habits like what I'd taught them the previous week.
While checking notes, I saw that one student made up their own short form.
They wrote, "Canada is a very big cunt." (excuse the language, but I'm quoting here)
This kid gets an E for effort, since they did try to only write the short form of the word, however, I don't quite think that's an appropriate abbreviation for "country."
I was a little shocked, and I snickered to myself but didn't bring it up to any other teacher since I doubt any of them would know what it meant. I did, however, spread it to whoever happened to be on Googletalk at the time. I just let the whole thing go because the student tried and I'd get in even more trouble if I even bothered to explain it.
And that, my friends, is all I have to report from J-land.
