Taron Plaza
(2000-01)
One of my best memories at LIOJ would have to be working with a group of third graders that I was assigned to teach during my second term at LIOJ. I had been warned by the previous teacher about this group; they were a bunch little monsters apparently. Indeed, that first day of class was a nightmare. There were only five of them, but they managed to be in every corner of the room at once throughout the class, and it was all I could do to keep them from attacking each other, and me!
The next class wasn't much better. I remember them sitting at the table (at least!) and, one after the other, shouting out "tsumaranai!" I knew enough Japanese to know they were telling me the class was boring and they were not trying to be polite about it!
So why is this one of my best memories? Well, things took a definite change a few weeks later when, as way of practicing numbers, I brought in a mini casino game that I found in the LIOJ games closet and taught them how to play roulette and blackjack. They loved it! For weeks afterwards they hammered me to play cards. I began bringing in other types of card games to help them learn. We had finally found a common ground. From there, things really started to improve. They became closer to each other and to me, too. As we became friends, it became more and more enjoyable to teach them, and between us, we came up with some pretty fun games. They went on to be one of my best classes, one of the ones where I could really see all of the students learning and enjoying English. Not to mention, those kids taught me a lot about relating to young learners.
Now, I am teaching at several public elementary schools here in Japan and am still using some of the same games that we came up with together. In many ways, it was those third graders at LIOJ that showed me how rewarding it can be to work with young learners.
February 2003
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