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  The things I ordered finally arrived. I went crazy and like ordered three different microcontrollers online and I think I ended up spending aorudn 10000 YEN lol but its okay. I started fiddling with it today and made a prototype for a piano and i managed to make it work. It was difficult in the beginning because I was expecting it to act completely like a Makey makey which is basically just plug and play but this one is different. I still havent used the other two, just the leonardo because of restrictions on my work computer which sucks so maybe it wont be feasible to use both in the future. Anyway, my plan is t o create a club that would maybe meet 2x a week like next semester so I could spend more time with students and get to know them more and a bit more personally and maybe build a better relationship with them so they get to speak English more. In the coming activities, I will probably start to use this thing to make my classes a bit more interactive and fun. We'll see how...

  We continue with the interview activity series, while honestly i feel like we shouldnt really have spent so many days on these since i prefer to be able to just umm play games with the students especially because theyre graduating soon but anyway. I think the activity was kind of a success. In the first class it was well, not good because it wasnt too structured but it improved since we turned it to a game where I ask them a question and they answer with "You..." and with Omori sensei or Sora sensei asking, they asnwer with "He...". It was cool.  I remember in one class, one student Kanata-kun, whom I met at the supermarket with his family a few days prior, asked my program "Do you like me?" looool. When we met at the supermarket, he asked for a "two shotto" which later I realised was tsuu shotto which is a picture with two people. Sometimes I feel like a celebrity with some of my students. LOL actually, sometimes i feel pressured to keep up be...

  For a few months now, I enjoy generating AI pictures of me in my classes. Lol pictures like these. So I use these in class, in this particular one, we are working on the simple past, with the context of things I did in the winter holidays. "buy a souvenir", "eat osechi dishes", "visit grandma/ a shrine", "see Tokyo Tower" etc.  In the first class, I had more control since I did most of the powerpoint. I was late because I completely forgot about the class since it keeps on changing. Maybe Kanehara sensei starts to think I'm very incompenent lol but not quite since I do most of the worksheet and the powerpoint so he knows I'm not lazyy. He just knows that I am bad at time management.  In the second class, I wasn't late. Actually, I attended a class I didnt have to attend because I got confused with the schedule again. We just continued the class like that and answered the worksheets. In the third class, we had the BOE visiting and T1...

  In this class, I prepared a program for practicing "May I" and some other prendas like sneakers, pants, shorts, jacket, watch, bracelet.  In the program, students practiced the dialogue: This ______ is so ______. May I try ___ on? I think its a good activity because the students could practice on their own without feeling shy. They just practiced with their computers. Although for some of them, it got a bit frustrating because the program couldnt understand what they were saying. On the other part, they feel quite accomplished when it finally recognised their pronunciation. Well, its a given that its not a phoneme level checker, but I think the value is that they could practise without feeling nervous because its just them and their computer. What I did to reinforce the activity was to go around helping them individually in the things they found challenging. Of course it was difficult to attend to everybody but I think it kind of helped. This is the first time I actually ha...

Google slides In this activity, I prepared a quiz with around 15 questions, and around 60 cards to play go fish. I had the class divide into their respective teams and I ask the class a question one at a time. The team has to talk to each other and write their answer on a piece of paper provided. If they answer it correctly, they receive a card which they can use to play the 2nd part of the game.  The quiz finishes with the team having around 7 plus cards and we start the 2nd round which is basically just go fish. Students will try to get cards from each other by asking "Do you have XXX card?" If the team they ask have the card/s that team has to give all to them. They can go for another turn if they were able to get a card from another team (max 2 turns). They can only ask for a card that they have.  The students quite enjoyed the activity trying to strategise and remember whos got which card and getting frustrated if they ask the wrong team.  A funny incident was when a...

  interviewer / interviewee activity Last week, Omori sensei asked if i could do the ALT interview activity and i tried to stick to the activity itself and brainstormed different ideas and in the end came up with different situations where a famous person is interviewed by someone. i used a code for the questionnaire for the interviewer and interviewee, and also another code for the dialogue conversation.  This morning, Omori sensei said she was sick and that she would go home, i was wondering why she went to school but i think this is another difference in culture. In the class, i guess everybody was doing it except for some students but mostly they did it. I think it went off without a hitch and i am glad.  There was a student who was intently looking at me and i didnt know how to react and just brushed it off. Sometimes i wonder what students are thinking.  In the last class, something made me feel kind of good inside, when one student commented how i do most of t...