Tuesday 20/05/08
Prac Block – Day Seven

Today was another usual Tuesday. For Japanese in the morning we did cooking! Together we made Teriyaki Stir-Fry with Udon. It was pretty good, and I was impressed to see the students participating really well. At the start of class we ran through the names of the ingredients and some basic sentences in Japanese – clean, cut and cook.

Then the students had to wash, peel and cut the veggies while some other students set the tables with bowls and chopsticks and others boiled the Udon. After the students had cooked everything they served it up and we ate together. After this, they all washed up and packed everything away. I was so impressed at the efficiency with which the students worked together!

When they were waiting for things to happen (like when two students were cooking and the rest were waiting) they played Hiragana Snatch to remember their hiragana. At the end of the lesson I revised the words we used today for the veggies and the cooking. Then the teacher revised all of the hiragana they had learnt and introduced them to chon-chon pronunciations.

After this, we went to D1 and had a maths lesson fairly identical to the previous days. D1 worked really well on their games today. About 80% of the students were playing their third games and so I handed out their final tasks which they can start work on straight away next lesson.

Following morning tea was maths with D2 who were fairly similar to D1 although they had less time to play their games. The principle came to talk with the class again today about bullying and the use of mobile phones at school as a bulling weapon. He said that recent events portrayed in the media about mobile phone bullies have convinced him beyond doubt that mobiles should be banned from schools. He also said that if he heard of any of his students using mobile phones to bully others even on the weekend he would take those students to the police.

After lunch, I watched the two dance groups practice for their eisteddfod tomorrow. I then attended bus duty with my supervising teacher. Ice blocks have been banned from the busses and the principle has spoken to the tuckshop about selling them after the school day has finished. The students (although much fewer than last week) still bought ice blocks, but then put them in their bags to get them on the bus.

All in all it was an interesting day.