Yes, well the time for redemption had finally
arrived!
Saturday was our chance to redeem ourselves after the embarrassing
English class we taught over a month ago! This time we were much more prepared,
and even came armed with food!
The ‘Lovely Linguists” meet almost every Saturday of the month, and
consist of a wide mix of Japanese people interested in learning English. Our
friend, Miyoko Atsumi, had asked if we could be the teachers for each class, but
unfortunately we could only agree to teach once a month, until the class finds a
permanent replacement teacher.
Surprisingly, they had us back after our first, disastrous
class….
This time, we came prepared with some Southern foods for the class to
sample. I made banana pudding, cheesy cornbread, deviled eggs, and Southern
sweet tea (with comparably less sugar than real sweet tea calls for… from fear
they would promptly spit out the overly sweet concoction). Of course, many of
the ingredients had to be mailed by our families, because there is no way in
heck you are going to find cornbread meal in Japan.
They really seemed to enjoy the food, and surprisingly, they seemed to
enjoy the cornbread the most! We were more prepared with a handout worksheet
outlining some commonly used English phrases and trivia for reading practice.
This mean teacher even gave those poor souls some
homework!
So…if you’ve seen the pictures, you’re probably thinking, “Hannah, if you
weren’t so nervous, why were you sweating so profusely in the last photo?” Well,
although I was still slightly nervous this time, Miyoko Atsumi had accidentally
turned the heat on at the beginning of the class instead of the air conditioner.
Halfway through class, after I was getting quite drenched, everyone realized the
heat was on! One of our trivia facts was that it is as beneficial to laugh for
15 minutes, as it is to sleep for two hours.
So…my
class was probably very healthy by the end of it all, because they got to laugh
at my sweaty back and armpits while I was writing on the
whiteboard.
Miyoko Nishii was there to capture some of the sweaty moments, and I
think she just went there to capture my embarrassing floundering on
camera!
All
in all, it was a good class this time around! It was a good experience for Zac
and I, and it feels good to be contributing outside of his work while we are
here in Japan…
Even
if it is to provide something sweaty to giggle at…