More Reasons Why I Love My Third Years

On Wednesday in English club I had the students write and act out their own skits. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, I just wanted to get them thinking and speaking in English. I got them for an hour last week, as I had originally intended, instead of for 15 minutes, like I've been getting all term. The level of English was very basic. But they had fun with it. One group of girls did a skit in which they waltzed across the room, and the other girls' skit consisted of one of the girls running in and saying "I'm sorry I'm late! I met an alien!" One group of boys was the most atrocious in terms of grammar, but it was all worth it to see one of the boys, U, enter the room doing what looked like the Japanese equivalent of the Carlton Dance, I don't know if it's a thing or if its just something he made up, but everyone was cracking up. 

By far the best skit, however, was done by the boy from the speech contest, T, and two other boys, C and T2 (this initials-only thing is getting a little ridiculous, but I'm going to be stubborn about this, because even though I know I'm being overly cautious, there are a lot of JETs who post pictures and videos of their students online, and while in all likelihood nothing bad is going to come from this, on principle I don't want to do it. It's only because we're JETs that we even feel compelled to post things about our students online. Other teachers don't do these things. Anyway, as anal as it is I'm going to stick to the principle). So my point is, these three boys wrote a skit that blew the others out of the water. For starters it didn't use only present and past tense. Their accents were also quite good (read: I could understand them). Here is a transcript:

C: How are you?

T2: I'm fine. And you?

C: I'm tired.

T: How long have you been tired? 

C: I've been tired since I was born.

T2: Ok? That's too bad.

T: Now, are you ready? Let's try! No. 1-Who is the best dangerous teacher in the world?

T2: Mr. N is. 

C: Oh. Wonderful! It's nice answer.

T: Next one. What subjects do you like?

T2: I like school lunch.

C: I heard that you don't like a lot of food. Really?

T2: Yes! For example... I can't answer. Because I don't know the names of the food.

C: I see. This plan finished.

T: Go to hell soon.

I don't really know what the last line was about, and there are a few moments of bad grammar, but you guys, this is light years ahead of what I usually see from these kids. Proving once again why I love my third years! (and even if the others aren't as good, at least they try). 

I had promised the kids we would cook one day in club, so on Friday, the last meeting of the term, we made hot dogs and french fries. I think they were not really clear on the concept of the french fries, because they all seriously undercooked them. But it was a fun little exercise. I brought drinks, I got one bottle of that gross tea everyone drinks here, because I figured they'd drink that, and I also got a bottle of coke, though I wasn't sure they'd like it. But the second I pulled out the coke, they were all like "Woah! Coke! Cool!" and no one touched the tea. I should have just gotten 2 cokes and forgone the tea.