"Are you my student?"

By Reika

“Are you my student?” This is what P.E. teacher said to me when he saw me in the beginning of the class. He was tall and big, so he frightened me at first. In the gym, students were playing a strange game. They used basketball nets and soccer goals; above all, they sometimes touched the ground. The sports called speedball that is like basketball, football and soccer’s skills all mixed together. Leah is my pen pal who is a freshman of Cheney High School and she is going to play speedball on the championship. I was so surprised to see girls and boys were playing the same sports together because this has never happened in Japanese’ high school. When people become the age that go to high school, we can see big energy differences between boys and girls. Girls rarely win boys. As a result, Japanese P.E. teaching style was changed. Girls only play with girls and boys only play with boys. On this style, students can enjoy the sports more because everyone has close energy.

“Run!” “Take it!” “Yes!” I heard many shouts while I was watching the game especially from the teacher. He shouted to students and sometimes he called the students and gave some advices. This teaching style was exactly the same with Japanese one. The class was interactive not only between teacher and students but also among students. Students did eye contact to pass the ball or using gesture. Although most of the time, they shouted. Teaching and taking class styles were the same as Japanese ones, so I just enjoyed watching their games.

After this interesting game, I had a lunch with my dearest pen pal Leah and Elizabeth. They were so kind to me, although they used a lot of slangs, so it was a little bit hard for me to understand what they said. Having a conversation with high school students were great opportunities for me to touch the native English. I had a lot of fun and I can’t wait to write another letter to my pen pal. By visiting Cheney High School, I found both good and bad points of teaching style in America. However, I just can’t forget the word, “Are you my student?” with teacher’s surprising face.