GT and Physical Fitness Testing

Because we had school on Saturday, we had yesterday, Monday, off. I'd rather have this coming Friday off so I can have a three-day weekend, but that's just how it goes.

Now that all the welcome ceremonies are over, the school days are starting to become more and more normal. For instance, today was the first morning of classes. The students (at the very least the seniors, but possibly all of them) also drew lots during homeroom to figure out the monthly seating arrangements (yes, they change every month!), which apply to both the classroom and the cafeteria! (The kids sit by grade during lunch, with six tables that seat up to 8 students per grade.)

Today was also the first day of what we call "GT," which stands for "Gokase Time."

During GT, which lasts for 10 minutes and takes place between the end of 4th period and the beginning of the lunch break, the high school students do listening comprehension practice in their respective classrooms, via the intercom.* Yours truly is responsible for coming up with all the materials for the sessions, which I actually introduce as listening comprehension "testing."

When I started doing GT about a year ago, I actually had to do two-step "dictations." Step one was me reading a short paragraph on any topic I wanted over and over for about 5 minutes, before giving the students a couple minutes to look at the script and correct their work. Step two was what they call "shadowing practice," whereby I once again read the script over and over for about five minutes, but this time the students were standing up in the classrooms and reading the script out loud, word for word, as soon as I said the words. (This whole "shadowing" thing as well as the standing-up-and-reading-out-loud thing is very common in the classrooms here in Japan, since word, sentence, and even paragraph memorization is given more importance than any actual thought processes. I hope to write more on that in a future blog.)

Luckily, after about two or three months, I was able to switch from the dictations to "real" listening comprehension testing.

Since then, so as not to bore the students, I've done my best to change the format for GT every month or so. For instance, I started off reading two long paragraphs and asking five multiple-choice questions based on the content. Then I switched to three shorter paragraphs with four questions each. At one point, I even eliminated the multiple-choice questions and instead challenged the kids to come up with the correct answers on their own. Basically, as the year went on, I went from easier methods to more and more difficult ones. (Occasionally, I simply told stories that I came up with, but for the most part, I surfed the Internet for interesting news articles and edited them down to about 120-200 words each, depending on whether I read two or three.)

This year, I've started off reading really short dialogs and asking multiple-choice questions based on the content. Starting in May, I'm probably going to switch to "complete-the-dialog" type questions. Hopefully, when all is said and done, most of the students' listening comprehension scores on the "Center Test" will improve dramatically.

Another thing that went on at school today was the annual physical fitness testing, which included checking the students' eyesight and hearing, recording their height and weight, and having them do a few athletic activities such as the standing broad jump and 30-second side-to-side shuffle.

*The junior high school students head to the cafeteria as soon as 4th period ends. Until the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, when the listening comprehension practice began, all the students went to eat at the same time and GT took place after lunch. Back then, GT lasted for 20 minutes and was used sort of as a "study hall." The students given worksheets to complete for either English, Japanese, or math with the subject changing from week to week. Last year, GT lasted for 15 minutes. This year, GT was shortened to 10 minutes when the new schedule came out.