ESS BLOG

Hello! My name is Patrick. I am the ALT at Higashi Harima High School. I'm from America. Yesterday, two ESS members and I visited Tenma Shougakkou (Elementary School), as guest teachers in a 5th-grader class! The visit was organized between our school, the principal at Tenma, and Amanda, their ALT from America. Of course, the lesson started with a self-introduction, where Tenma students were challenged to guess what kind of food, TV programs, and sports we like (in English, of course!).



After that, the topic/grammar point of the day was "what do you like?" from animals to sports, TV programs and food. The 5th-graders were given fake passports, while the teachers, ESS students, and I acted as immigration officers from different countries. Only, instead of asking the kids if they had anything to declare to customs, we were asking them what things they like! After answering, they got a stamp.

The kids at Tenma were incredibly energetic, and so excited to speak English. Any time Amanda-sensei asked for a volunteer, so many hands shot up that we didn't have enough time to get through them all. They were extremely interested in what America was like, in what Higahari was like, and you could see the admiration in their eyes as they looked upon such mature and put-together high school students, perhaps imagining themselves in the same uniform one day. As they say in Japanese, gabatte!