Surprising differences

By Miu

I couldn’t understand today’s class at all, but I think it is no problem. It’s because the class that I took was Spanish. I’ve never studied Spanish before, so it was really difficult for me. The teacher is from Brazil, so there is a national flag of Brazil in the classroom. On the wall, many word cards of Spanish decorated in order that students look at them every time. She always spoke Spanish only in the class. However, when some students didn’t know what she said, she explained in English. She also used lots of body languages to understand easily. Students were 16boys and 8girls. All of them wore casual clothes such as T-shirts and jeans. Some students chewed a gum, but no one ate some food or drank something. In the class, they answered their assignments at first, and next they practiced Spanish pronunciation. Today’s class was about past verbs and they made some sentences by using verbs that they learned. The teacher gave students each whiteboards, so they didn’t take notes anything. Finally, they worked in groups to make a story with past verbs. During the group work, they talked a lot and helped each other; but they were sometimes too noisy, so the teacher warned them. However, students asked many questions and the teacher and them talked a lot. Therefore, their relationship looked very well. As I wrote the last journal, I realized again that communication of students and teachers is the biggest differences between the U.S. and Japan. I was surprised the teacher and students communicated so much and both of them enjoyed the class. It was the ideal class for me.

I was also surprised at my pen pal, Kendrick. It’s because he has a daughter. He is 17 years old and still a high school student. He doesn’t marry yet, but he said wants to marry his girlfriend someday. In Japan, some teenagers have a child without a marriage like him, but it is unusual. I think it is same in the U.S, so my case was a little rare. When I met him at first, I was little bit afraid of him, because he is so tall and big. However, I knew he was very kind and gentle as talking with him, so I think he’ll be a good father. Anyway, it was a really good opportunity for me to understand American classroom teaching style and communicate with American students. I’ll make a wonderful presentation about American school roles by using lots of information from them.