What day is it today?

That's not supposed to be a trick question.

It's just a question that I always ask my students (all five of them) at Yamane Jr. High School.

Yuya writing the date on the blackboard.

At the beginning of both classes I teach at Yamane every Wednesday, I start by asking the students the day, date, time and weather.

After that, they have a few minutes to take an English word quiz. Several words are written in Japanese, and they must write what the word is in English.

Kana taking the san-nensei (3rd grade = 9th grade in the American system) English quiz.

Then after the quiz, we spend time having English conversation since the two classes at Yamane are so small. I ask them questions like, "What did you do last weekend?" The remainder of the time is spent reading and teaching from the textbook.

At Okawame Jr. High school, we spend a majority of the class time using the textbook. Mr. Otsuki often makes worksheets to go along with the lessons in the book.

Mr. Otsuki writing the paragraph from the textbook on the blackboard.

He explains the meaning in Japanese by writing it in a different color above the English.

I assist Mr. Otsuki by saying the new vocab words aloud and having the students repeat after me. Sometimes, each student has to come up to me and read a passage from the book, and I sign off on it.

In addition to teaching 7th, 8th and 9th grades at Okawame, I also teach one special needs student, Junichi. With Junichi, Mr. Takahashi and I look for ways to make studying English exciting and fun. This past Tuesday, we started out class by having ice cream! (Doesn't get much more fun than that!)

Miniature banana splits. :) Yum.

I don't have any pictures from Misaki Jr. High, but that's the school I go to every Thursday. Unlike at Yamane and Okawame, where I don't have much say in the lesson, Mr. Nakano at Misaki has me plan the lessons with him before class. We do a combination of teaching from the textbook and playing games. I like to come up with games that go along with what we teach from the book.

So teaching at each junior high school is a different experience. But at all three, I really like the teachers I work with and the students I teach.