I must admit, after our trip to China, I wasn't especially looking forward to going back to work--but I'm glad I did (and not just to financially recoup the losses incurred by many days of shopping for "cheap", you're-only-in-China-once stuff). We had forgotten how fun and funny our students are! I guess we just need a two-week trip out of the country every few months to fully appreciate what we have here in Mito:)
We've been compiling this list of true and funny things kids have said to us. I think it's time we share them with you, since they are way funnier than either of us could ever hope to be. Now you can see why we spend so much of our time at work laughing (and some of our time correcting creative uses of English).
*(In Japanese): Mark-sensei, do you go home to America every day after school?
*(In Japanese, after I was invited to join a wild 2nd grade jump-roping session. My mistake was hesistating to jump in): Um, Kelly-sensei, maybe you aren't jumping in because you don't understand jump rope. That's okay, it's a Japanese game, so you probably don't know how to do it. If you want to play with some other kids right now, that's fine. Next time we play a game with a ball or something, we'll invite you to play with us.
*(In Japanese during the "student comments" portion of class): Mark-sensei's English is so good! He's, like, fluent!
*(In Japanese, at kindergarten): Girl A- Kelly-sensei, your English is so good! Girl B- yeah! Foreigners always have really good English!
*(In a 3rd grade class, during a lesson teaching "do you have a ---" and school supplies) Do you have a gruler? (Sounded more like gruuraah? SO MANY kids mixed up "ruler" and "glue"...I don't know why but the result was pretty cute).
*Before each class, a few students come to the teachers' room to escort me. Usually students shyly creep in, then hem and haw and finally say something like "please take me my class." However, one bold 6th grader marched in and yelled out: "HELLO MISS KELLY! STAND UP! LET'S GO! " The teachers' room erupted in laughter.
*(in Japanese) "Miss Kelly, you have a little booger in coming out of your nose. It must be because you're a foreigner."
*(in Japanese) "Mark sensei, how many centimeters is your nose?" [noses are a frequent topic of conversation with us, if you can't tell]
*"Let's go animal!!! Let's go animal!!!" Two second-graders made up their own English cheer while we played volleyball. They were pretty proud of themselves for putting it together without help from me (their word bank is somewhat limited:))
*and the winner..."We are thieves! We'll steal your ass!" (Mark's kindergarten kids, while practicing an English play about a thieve who steals animals. Mark sensei quickly suggested using "donkey" instead).
It's easy to laugh at these cute comments and mistakes, until I realize that there's probably some blog out there, in Japanese, that says "guess what Kelly/Mark sensei said today?!?"
4 comments:
Hey Kelly, I was wondering if you think I should take the SAT before senior year.
easily the best blog...ever. my favorite was the gruuraah. and the singular form of thieves is thief :) love you!
Cris--yeah, can you believe they pay me to teach English?!?:) My English skills are rapidly declining..."thieve" sounds so right! I know you're a sucker for the cute kids stories--I had you in mind when I posted.
Jill--some schools combine your best verbal and your best math score into one, "best of" score and offer scholarships based on that. I took the SATs twice and that worked to my advantage. If it were me, I would take the SAT ASAP:)
This is the funniest blog I've read in a while. It makes me wonder what my kids are saying that my teachers aren't telling me. It also is making having hte mumps not so bad, I'm so happy for blogs to occupy my quarrentine time. Thanks guys!
Catera
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