Yeehaw!

Back in October, the ALTs had a hoedown -- complete with cowboy hats, bandanas and decorations -- which have been stored in my apartment ever since.

I thought I should make use of these things before I take them back to the US of A with me. (I'm going back for a few days later this month for my brother's wedding, whipeeee! And then leaving my Kuji home & returning home home at the beginning of August, only two months away. Whew, time is really flying!)

Sooo anyway...after talking to the super nice English teacher at Yamane Jr. High School, she agreed to give me free reign (as in horses, hehe) to have a cowboy-themed English lesson. Lesson planning isn't a usual part of my job as an ALT, and I really enjoyed getting into the theme and thinking up some fun games & activities.

First, I gave each student a bandana and a cowboy hat, which had some words inside. They had to put the words together to form sentences.

Then, we had a showdown with water guns, minus the water.

The English teacher said a word or sentence in Japanese, and the first cowboy or cowgirl to say, "Bang bang! The word or sentence in English inserted here!" got a point.

In the first of the two classes, Jason (his English name for English class) beat his classmates, Alex and Lauren. So he got to wear the Sheriff badge for the rest of the time.

Next, I had a fill-in-the-blank story about a trail ride that the students helped me complete by giving me a name, food, place, emotion, etc. in English. Together, we plugged their responses into the story, and this is what we got: (the bolded words were blanks)

Yesterday, I rode my favorite horse, Jason. (S)he's pink and loves to eat steak . After (s)he was saddled up, we decided to go to Russia. As we were trotting through the woods, I noticed it was beginning to get dark. While I was looking up at the sky, Alex jumped out from behind a car and scared me! I was so happy that I fell off the horse and hit my finger. Fortunately, Lauren came along and helped me up. We decided to go back to my house to play a Pokemon video game instead of going to the classroom.

The students got a kick out of the story when the teacher helped them understand the meaning in Japanese.

Alex filling in the blanks of the story while snacking on trail mix. :)

The lesson/party/"cowboy festival" as the principal called it, ended with me teaching some country line dancing! And in the second class, it ended with taking this group photo...

From left to right: Ashley (a.k.a. Haruka), Mike (Daichi) and Emily (Satomi)