JCMU offered internships that ranged from playing with children at a nursery, to working at a broadcasting company, to working at a sweets shop. I applied and was placed at an elementary school where I and another student would take place in some of the classroom activities. The internship was once a week for four hours.
The first meeting, a lower classmate, the internship lady, and I met with the principal and our boss and we had to give an introduction. With that I was instantly nervous! I'm not for sure of why I was so nervous, maybe it was because we were meeting some one high on work ladder, or maybe it was because I didn't want to offend anyone and Japanese manors isn't something that I haven't studied very often.
The first reason yes, the second reason no. Before going to the meeting the internship lady gave us a crash course on how to act when having a meeting. A sigh of relief!
My Internship was placed at an elementary school about 15 minutes away from the JCMU dormitory on bike. What our main objective to do at the elementary school was to observe the kids in the classroom setting, be an example of a 'good' English speaker, participate in some classroom activities, and to give the children international experience. I think we did all of that.
Some of the things that we did with the students:
- Read Sleeping Beauty
- Clean the classroom!
- Answer questions (personal & non personal somtimes)
- Make Origami
- Teach American/English songs- Puff the Magic dragon was requested, and then they played it on the recorder for us!
- Teach hand games
- Participate in gym activities
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| Jump rope for Gym class! My ultimate enemy! It hurts my joints!! |
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| Then they bring out the big rope and have everyone jump through it... |
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| One of the classes we visited. They are all so cute even though they were really energetic and all over the place! |
Truthfully I was apprehensive about taking part in the internship, because I really thought that I was going to be able to use it to finish my requirements, but it didn't work out that way. Honestly though I am glad that I was able to do the internship because I was able to work on my translation (which surprisingly I did good on, but translated it very bluntly), I was able to see the difference between the Japanese and the American school system and finally work on my listening. The children were really energetic and asked a lot of personal questions, and stared. The staring part is to be expected, the personal questions part not so much.
It was a lot of fun and a little nerve wrecking when I couldn't understand what the kids were saying and then sometimes what the senseis (teachers) were saying, but I think it's safe to say that my listening skills have gotten better! Now I just need to work on replying.
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