With the first semester coming to a close, the Saturday class held an event called “Otanoshimi-kai”, a fun party, where all the students and teachers got together and had a great time.
Date and Time : Saturday, July 13 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Venue : Abiko Civic Plaza Hall
Participants : 25 students and 11 volunteer teachers, totaling 36 people (No.24-11)
The Saturday class has accepted new students almost every week since the beginning of the school year. Moreover, students rarely have opportunities to communicate with those from other groups. That’s why the teachers planned this event for all the students to gather. It was started with Mr. Obara’s opening words and emceed by Ms.Yamada.
Part 1 : Self-Introduction and Introduction of “My Hometown”
Some students showed photos and videos introducing scenic spots, folk costumes, food, etc. from their towns and regions. Among them were “The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge”, which was constructed during the Chinese great economic growth era, “Elephant Poop”, a handcrafted souvenir from Sri Lanka, “The Rainy Port Keelung” in Taiwan, “Cebu Island” in the Philippines, introduced by an elementary school student, “Cherries” from Dalian City, which is one of the largest cherry-producing areas in China. The students made presentations in Japanese, the language they study hard in the AIRA class.
Part 2 : Skits
The students performed role-play skits based on the pages from the textbook “Minna-no-Nihongo”.
Part 3 : Kamishibai
A student performed “Three Little Pigs” in Kamishibai, a traditional Japanese form of story-telling that uses pictures.
Part 4 : Fruit Basket
Fruit Basket is a game similar to Musical Chair. The players with a card of fruit hanging on their neck were seated on chairs arranged in a big circle, except one player, “It” or “Oni” in Japanese, standing in the center. Sometimes “It” forgot their fruit and failed to get a seat again, while others missed a seat because they didn’t notice their fruit being called. It might have been confusing as they had to say the names of fruit in Japanese. Each round, the players got excited and there was laughter. Everybody was amused by this thrilling game.
(Translated by Chizu Yamaguchi)
