During Periods 5 and 6, we assisted the English teacher with a conversation class, and took part in a Phys Ed lesson. Once again, in the English class, our students had to introduce themselves in Japanese (they're getting very good at it now!), followed by English, and then the class broke up into small groups to interview our students about their favourite things, and to demonstrate some traditional Japanese toys that they had brought in from home.
The Phys Ed lesson that the boys attended was a gymnastics floor exercise practice, while the girls' class was working on the gymnastics beam. It was an interesting experience for us, as we don't usually do any gymnastics at school as part of our Phys Ed curriculum.
After school, we watched some classes rehearse for the Inter-class Choir Competition which is being held this Friday. Each class has a compulsory song and a free choice song to sing. The class choir is conducted by a student, and students also accompany on piano. The class teacher has no input at all - the students organise the songs, break them into parts (sometimes 4-part harmony), teach each other and run the practice sessions. The standard of the perormances is very high.
Next we moved to the gym for a kendo (Japanese bamboo sword fighting) lesson with the kendo club. It was good fun and involved lots of counting and yeling as you stamped your foot and swung your sword! Finally, we joined in with a tennis club practice session. The students were playing nanshiki tennis - it is similar to regular tennis, but played with a very soft ball and a lighter racquet.
After a day full of sport, it was a very tired group of students that headed home at 5.30pm.
Kendo looks like Samurai training. Are you there learning to be Samurai's?
ReplyDeleteKian
Hi Kian,
DeleteYes, kendo was invented to help samurai with theri training. It's much safer to practise with bamboo swords than the real thing! I'm not sure that our kendo skills are up to samurai level yet, but our yelling as we charge and swing our swords was pretty good!
Tate-Sensei :-)
Hi Everyone!
ReplyDeleteI am Laura's big sister Amy. Looks like you are having the most wonderful time! It is really nice to see the pictures of what you are all getting up to each day - and I am glad to hear that your Japanese is improving! I hope you all enjoy the rest of the trip and get to learn some more things (like Kendo etc) that we don't do here in Australia.
Amy.
A big THANK YOU to Janine for writing this blog and allowing those of us at home to see how much fun you are all having.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy and Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for commentingon our blog. We are having a GREAT time - can't believe we will be heading home tomorrow night. See you soon!
Janine