Playing catch-up
Have had a little bit of a blogging break, and have realised that I never got the chance to blog about some cool things that have happened in the last week. So, in an attempt to let my blog catch up with real time, here are the highlights ;
- Kobe recontracting Conference on the whole was great. I would love to visit Kobe again, and actually have the chance to explore the city during the day. We had some great food, drinks and karaoke at night though, and Kobe proved itself to be a pretty cool and exciting city. The Spanish food was great, the dancing at Sally's was fun, Kat's games were on top form, and it was great to hang out with lots of different people from around the ken. Even the conference itself was pretty good!! In fact some of the workshops/lectures were, dare I say it, useful and relevant!!!! Jamie's workshop on 'Classroom management at senior high school' was good, had some great ideas, and was extremely interesting to hear from other people who actually appear to have some real issues in their classes! My kids are angels in comparison to some of the stories I heard. The TEFL basic theory workshop, was not really thrilling, but did not put me off wanting to get my CELTA qualification. Plus the guy presenting was quite cute, and tried his best, bless him! The 'Enhancing students' motivation' workshops, and the 'GenkiEnglish' guy presentation, gave me some good ideas, and just generally boosted my enthusiasm for my job. I've already started thinking about the website I'm gonna design, and have already instigated one change at my base school, by persuading my teachers that the kids should have a speaking test as part of their termly english OC1 test. Yey...let's see how long i can keep this motivated, genki attitude going! Other good points about Kobe ; very nice hotel ; yummy breakfasts ; a free train ride to Osaka thanks to Yamaguchi-ken BOE ; great to reminisce about Tokyo orientation, and remember how little I knew then ; great to realise that I still know very little, so I have lots more to learn over the next year ; nice to see all my ken friends, and hang out with a bunch of people who are on the same page as me, and who are looking forward to the next year in Japan like me!
- Im actually going to give the GenkiEnglish guy his own section, as I feel his intense enthusiasm and passion for working in English teaching warrants a longer comment! He was inspirational, if a little crazy! It was just so nice to listen to someone who does not appear to have become jaded by working as a teacher in Japan, and who still sounds incredibly fresh when he speaks of his ideas or motivations. I hope that at the end of my second year, I still have his passion for the job and the students that will carry me into my next position with enough ideas and enthusiasm to succeed. Aside from this however, I loved listening to this guy, as he's from Yorkshire, and still has his accent, even after many years in Japan. It was just so cool to listen to a Yorkshire accent for 90 minutes, and I positively beamed when he used the expressions 'eh up!' and 'down pit!'. It was also funny to watch others around me (from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and even the South of England) looking a little confused by his ramblings and occassional slang! At the beginning of his speech, when he said he was from Yorkshire, I couldn't help but cheer! As my Mum said when I told her this 'you can take the girl out of Yorkshire. But you can't take the yorkshire out of the girl!"
- AJET Beach BBQ in Hagi. Ok, so the beach part of this wasn't a success, as it was grey, windy, cold, and slightly rainy. We therefore moved all of the food and bbqs back to Dan and Rosie's house, who were kind enough to host the party of around 30 people for the whole afternoon and evening. Thanks guys! It was great to see our first event become a success, and everyone seemed to be having a really good time. The food was delicious and plentiful, and the fireworks and sparklers in the evening were cool, if a little scary! Some of those 100 yen fireworks often looked like they might fly straight into the house! Thanks to everyone for coming, bringing great food (but not great weather!), and a special thanks to Dan and Rosie for their hospitality, and Sarah for her dance show, which ended in a spectacular striptease routine!!!
- Baking scones in English club. Yey...it was a huge success. 12 students turned up to try their hands at making an English afternoon tea, and by god they were great! Tori, I used the recipe you sent me (thanks heaps), and it worked a treat!! They actually tasted like proper scones!! Whooohooo! At the end all the students sat around spreading jam and butter on the scones, and sipping earl grey tea! I think they really enjoyed it, and I certainly did!
This is Lauren, with her positive/enthusiastic hat on, signing off.
- Kobe recontracting Conference on the whole was great. I would love to visit Kobe again, and actually have the chance to explore the city during the day. We had some great food, drinks and karaoke at night though, and Kobe proved itself to be a pretty cool and exciting city. The Spanish food was great, the dancing at Sally's was fun, Kat's games were on top form, and it was great to hang out with lots of different people from around the ken. Even the conference itself was pretty good!! In fact some of the workshops/lectures were, dare I say it, useful and relevant!!!! Jamie's workshop on 'Classroom management at senior high school' was good, had some great ideas, and was extremely interesting to hear from other people who actually appear to have some real issues in their classes! My kids are angels in comparison to some of the stories I heard. The TEFL basic theory workshop, was not really thrilling, but did not put me off wanting to get my CELTA qualification. Plus the guy presenting was quite cute, and tried his best, bless him! The 'Enhancing students' motivation' workshops, and the 'GenkiEnglish' guy presentation, gave me some good ideas, and just generally boosted my enthusiasm for my job. I've already started thinking about the website I'm gonna design, and have already instigated one change at my base school, by persuading my teachers that the kids should have a speaking test as part of their termly english OC1 test. Yey...let's see how long i can keep this motivated, genki attitude going! Other good points about Kobe ; very nice hotel ; yummy breakfasts ; a free train ride to Osaka thanks to Yamaguchi-ken BOE ; great to reminisce about Tokyo orientation, and remember how little I knew then ; great to realise that I still know very little, so I have lots more to learn over the next year ; nice to see all my ken friends, and hang out with a bunch of people who are on the same page as me, and who are looking forward to the next year in Japan like me!
- Im actually going to give the GenkiEnglish guy his own section, as I feel his intense enthusiasm and passion for working in English teaching warrants a longer comment! He was inspirational, if a little crazy! It was just so nice to listen to someone who does not appear to have become jaded by working as a teacher in Japan, and who still sounds incredibly fresh when he speaks of his ideas or motivations. I hope that at the end of my second year, I still have his passion for the job and the students that will carry me into my next position with enough ideas and enthusiasm to succeed. Aside from this however, I loved listening to this guy, as he's from Yorkshire, and still has his accent, even after many years in Japan. It was just so cool to listen to a Yorkshire accent for 90 minutes, and I positively beamed when he used the expressions 'eh up!' and 'down pit!'. It was also funny to watch others around me (from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and even the South of England) looking a little confused by his ramblings and occassional slang! At the beginning of his speech, when he said he was from Yorkshire, I couldn't help but cheer! As my Mum said when I told her this 'you can take the girl out of Yorkshire. But you can't take the yorkshire out of the girl!"
- AJET Beach BBQ in Hagi. Ok, so the beach part of this wasn't a success, as it was grey, windy, cold, and slightly rainy. We therefore moved all of the food and bbqs back to Dan and Rosie's house, who were kind enough to host the party of around 30 people for the whole afternoon and evening. Thanks guys! It was great to see our first event become a success, and everyone seemed to be having a really good time. The food was delicious and plentiful, and the fireworks and sparklers in the evening were cool, if a little scary! Some of those 100 yen fireworks often looked like they might fly straight into the house! Thanks to everyone for coming, bringing great food (but not great weather!), and a special thanks to Dan and Rosie for their hospitality, and Sarah for her dance show, which ended in a spectacular striptease routine!!!
- Baking scones in English club. Yey...it was a huge success. 12 students turned up to try their hands at making an English afternoon tea, and by god they were great! Tori, I used the recipe you sent me (thanks heaps), and it worked a treat!! They actually tasted like proper scones!! Whooohooo! At the end all the students sat around spreading jam and butter on the scones, and sipping earl grey tea! I think they really enjoyed it, and I certainly did!
This is Lauren, with her positive/enthusiastic hat on, signing off.
posted by Lauren @ 10:48 am
1 Comments:
At 3:33 am,
Rosie said…
Loz, your English afternoon tea sounds fabulous, I wish I could have been there. Ah, scones with jam and cream...torture just thinking about it!
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