Today I was supposed to have an English lesson with one of my correspondence students. This young lady now lives in Tokyo (I envy her a lot about that), and is originally from Fukuoka. Taking the opportunity of her coming back to her hometown, we had an English lesson.
I took a 9:35 bus bound for Tenjin. I had though that the bus would not be so crowded,
so other passengers and I who got on the bus at 新飯塚 Stop had to use an auxiliary seat(jump seat=補助イス). The bus was also caught in a heavy traffic jam on the roads in Fukuoka City, and this made me arrive at the designated place to meet her very late.
In the lesson, 1) first, we practiced saying numbers in English using 九九 and 割り算(over-expression). 2) Next, we used fliers of agricultural products and did a role- playing conversation. I asked the student to pick out three kinds of fliers of fruits. She picked out Kaki, melon and peach.
take the part as a buyer at a supermarket who would like to purchase kaki from a famous brand kaki grower.
We developed a business conversation impromptu. This was the first trial that I had done this kind of role playing.
Next, we used a flier of melon.
see me after a long time with these melons in a hospital where I have been for several months because of disease.
We tried to have a conversation also impromptu.
This role-playing may be difficult even in Japanese. So it must be a good training for us to use English. We did it in English
3) Then, we practiced Japanese⇒English translation in an oral method.
We had about two hours lesson. At the end of the lesson, she kindly gave me a box of sweets. They are very delicious.
After the lesson, I went to Sony Plaza to buy some presents for my precious friend.
Came home around 15:00 in the afternoon.
I had another English lesson at 17:00. The student is a college student (not deshi). She goes to Nakamura Univ. in Fukuoka, majoring in Education. She wants to be an elementary school teacher in the future. She is very keen in learning English, in fact more enthusiastic than I had expected. As an elementary school teacher, she hopes that she will be able to teach her future students English.
We practiced reading out Mother Goose and other essay as a pronunciation, intonation and rhythm training.
Very tired in the evening and went to bed very early.