Take My Camera to Work Day - Part 1: 宇部商業高校

I decided it was about time I got some pictures from work, so today I took my camera and took some pictures! Today is Wednesday which means I was at 宇部商業高校 - Ube Commercial High School. Hopefully I'll remember to get some pictures from my other schools before winter break!

There's a steep hill that leads up to Ube Commercial High School

Shoe lockers - you have to change into slippers and Staff Room - Every teacher's desk is in here

You can't even wear indoor slippers in some rooms (left) and Warming up by the heater before class (right)

Students working hard : ) (left) and Hayakawa Sensei and the class clown (right)

The track girls running after school

For my Christmas lesson plan, the students learned about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer through my awesome drawings on the board and the song. They had to listen to the song and some of the lyrics on their worksheets were out of order, so they had to number them in the correct order. It was harder for them than I thought it was going to be... I think they just didn't understand what they were supposed to do... but they eventually got it. Then after that, Hayakawa Sensei (the teacher who I team-teach with at this school) wanted them all to make Christmas cards for me. So they used this sheet we gave them that had Christmas card phrases in English with the Japanese translation. Almost all of the students stuck with the set phrases, but a handful of them branched out and wrote a little letter along with the set phrases. The cards turned out quite nice. Here's my favorite one:

They call me バーバラ先生 ("Barbara Sensei")... which is why when they wrote my name in English it turned out saying "Ms. Barbara"... instead of Ms. Belsito. ONE girl had a picture of the manger scene along with a Bible verse from the Chistmas story. I was shocked. Shocked. Almost no Japanese people even know that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. This girl must be one of the very few Christians in Japan. I thought about teaching them the Christmas story... but it didn't fit in with the amount of time I had to work with at this school because Hayakawa Sensei really wanted them to make the Christmas cards. Also, this is a bad reason, but honestly, I thought it would be too hard because the vocabulary would've been way out of their range and they probably wouldn't have understood... or have paid attention. But I did manage to throw in that on Christmas Eve I go to church with my family and we sing Christian Christmas songs and somebody reads the Christmas story from the Bible. But anway, here are some of my other favorites cards from students:

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