Maenishi International Day

Today my school had their International Day and 9 other ALTs came to visit and share a little about their home countries. I was really stressed and worried leading up to today because I didn't really know what to expect and I knew that all of the other ALTs would be looking to me for answers. Luckily everything went pretty smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time.

After the opening ceremony some students from the Korean class presented Alice in Wonderland in Korean and the Chinese class sang some songs. Two students from the Spanish class did a tango for everyone and it was really funny to watch because the girl was leading and they had at least a good foot of distance between them the entire time.

The rest of the morning was spent having the ALTs present their home country to a group of students who then went back to their classes and taught everyone else all about that country. All in all there were 9 countries represented today so I think they got a pretty good introduction to the English speaking world. There was someone from Canada, America, Barbados, England, Ireland, South Africa, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

Some of the facts got a little muddled when they had to report back to their classmates but for the most part they seemed to understand a lot of what was told to them. I especially enjoyed the report on Australia because they spent a lot of time talking about how it started off as a prison colony and then proceeded to list off all of the things there that could kill you. Sounds like a great place, let's go!

I was one of the things they had to draw for Pictionary.

 In the afternoon we got to play games with the kids and that was a lot of fun. We played pictionary, hangman, telephone, shiritori (you have to make a list of words where the next word has to start with the last letter from the previous word. ie: boat, talk, kangaroo) and wanderword (you are given a letter and you have to write as many words as possible that contain that letter).

The only thing that I didn't enjoy about today was having to share my kids with everyone. Now my students know how much fun some of the other JETs are and they are stuck with me! Some of my 3rd year students asked me to take a picture of them with the JET from South Africa. All I can say is that they had better ask for a picture with me when they graduate! *shakes a fist in their general direction* I have my eye on them!