It’s Graduation Day!

We had our graduation ceremony today and so many befitting adjectives come to mind: solemn, precision and uniformity, orderly and beautiful, traditional, and, I wouldn’t be wrong if I added spiritual to the list. It was memorable and touching, so much so that I got the inspiration to write after such a long time LOL! I had a hard time holding back the tears from the very minute that the procession of graduating students marched in, led by their form tutors. The dam burst eventually when the 3C form tutor got on the podium and tearily made a roll call of her students for the last time 🙈. 

There was nothing impromptu about the beautiful ceremony that I witnessed today. It was all well planned and smoothly executed. Graduating students, the third-year teachers and planning committee prepared extensively, rehearsing the procession vigorously and rigorously, leaving no room for mistakes. Proper Samurai style. I love it! In fact, the schedule and program schedule were printed days before so everyone knew what to expect. It started at 9 a.m. on the dot, and ended at 10. This is worthy of mention and notable for me, coming from a culture of “African Time” where we give room to people who may be running late while spending some extra time putting unnecessary last-minute adjustments on a whim🥴. 

During the ceremony, I observed several aspects and cultural symbols and mannerisms which I believe are distinctly Japanese. I mean, Japan never ceases to amaze me especially with the way that they have held on to tradition and their refusal to bow to western/outside influences in certain key areas. Of course, there are many western elements that they embraced to keep up with the rest of the global society, but they have succeeded in giving those things some kind of Japanese flavour.

Ambience is everything. There were flowers- real and decorative- all around the school. The paper ones were made out of cardboards and crafted like Sakura which is the National flower of Japan. Most of the colourful decorations were hand-made by junior students (first and second grade), supervised and assisted by teachers. The stage of the gym where the ceremony took place was the most fascinating for me. Colourful and beautiful, it had so many decorations, the flag of Japan and the school flag as the backdrop, and I noticed that everyone who had something to do on stage bowed in obeisance to the flags before they climbed up. And oh, 校長先生 (principal) looked so regal in his Kimono, I had to ask for a picture 😄. 

The solemnity of the ceremony bounced up and down the back of many bows. The moving and eloquent speeches by the principal, the outgoing and incumbent students’ representative were all met with polite, straight-backed formal bows. Not the cheering and clapping of hands that I am used to. We only clapped thrice- as the graduating students marched in and filed out, and after the reception when they were leaving school with their parents. 

Two years working as a 4 Skills Support teacher to support the English learning journey of the graduating students and I am so going to miss them. Wishing them good luck and best wishes for the future. 卒業おめでとうございます。

Thanks for stopping by. See you next post!

 

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From Active Teaching to Active Observation

 When I transited from being an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) to a 4Skills Support teacher in 2020, I moved from active teaching to actively supporting the Japanese teachers of English (JTE), as well as observing the happenings  in the English language classroom and Japanese educational system generally. Though I miss having to plan lessons and not being in front of class as often as I used to, my role has afforded me the chance to notice a lot more things than I would have if I had my head buried in lesson planning and stuff. And believe me when I say, I have seen thingssss… LOL. Good stuff really and, more than ever, I am super impressed with the Japanese education. So, if you are curious about Japan’s world-famous educational system, you’re in luck because going forwards, I’ll be sharing the juicy stuff, from my POV of course. 

 

Also, my domain name changed, did you notice? I had issues with the former one and now it’s teacher-lola.com and no longer teacherlola.com. Just a tiny dash yeah, but it’s like starting from scratch to drive traffic to my blog and I’ll still need to do some tweaking to make it look good and more functional. 

Well, let me shamelessly say that the point of this boring post is to invite you to bookmark my blog if you haven’t already, and be on the lookout so that you catch new posts hot off the press. Also, comments and engagements with posts will go a long way. 

Phew, feels so good to be back typing and putting my thoughts back up on this space. And if you read up to this point, I thank you. Your support is highly appreciated.

 

Thanks for stopping by, see you next post!

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MaskAdaisical

School’s out for summer! Phew. It was a tough one but I’m so glad we made it to the end of the term, the crazy challenges notwithstanding. 

COVID-19 changed the dynamics of teaching and learning as we know it. For example, there weren't opportunities for team building/ group tasks and students had to sit a few meters apart to maintain social distancing. Never mind that students broke the social distancing rule from time to time. Of course, we also had to wear masks 24/7 to prevent the spread of the virus. I found that teaching EFL with a mask over your mouth is nothing short of annoying and frustrating. Needless to say that modeling proper pronunciation was difficult to achieve. 

Owing to the fact that I started working at this school at the time when the pandemic was beginning to gain momentum, I have no idea what my students look like without masks. Towards the end of the term, students were beginning to get antsy and “maskadaisical” and occasionally they would slip down their masks for a breath of fresh air and it was always a pleasant surprise! They looked nothing like I’d imagined. It was almost as if their masks came with “open for a surprise” labels.

One of the biggest moments for me this term was when I had the opportunity to attend a mini-sporting event between two arms of the first grade and all participants had their masks off. I didn’t know who was who and it was exciting to identify them by distinct features like their height, hairstyle and attitude. They had a good laugh every time I gasped and called out “——- is that you!” I was so overwhelmed with happiness that I wept, literally! 

This experience helped me appreciate the seemingly little things that we take for granted- braces, freckles, dimples and crooked dentition! I really hope that a vaccine is discovered soon. We can never go back to “normal”- surely not, but I hope that the lessons of hygiene, compassion and consideration for others and their personal space, among others, remain with us after this is all over.

As schools are just being re-opened in some parts of the world, I wish all the teachers who are just about to start work a successful school term as well. As far as this pandemic is concerned, we can never be too careful thus hand washing and sanitizing are very important, and also keep the masks on by all means. 

Thanks for stopping by, see you next post. 

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Backing Up Your Backup Plan

How’s it going? Hope everyone is having a great school-week so far. It’s almost Friday and I  can’t wait! Gosh, I am so super teacher-tired!

This week has gone well really and there’s nothing much to report except that my laptop almost did the unthinkable on Tuesday morning, sending me into a state of panic because I had no back-up plan!

In fairness to my faithful, soon-to-be 5 years old Samsung laptop, it has been showing signs of tiredness but I’ve been coaxing and urging it to take one more step because I’m not ready for a new one yet. But on Tuesday morning when I got to school and tried to turn it on in preparation for my four back to back lessons which I had from first till 4th period, it just didn’t come on. Instead, I got an error message that the system was “scanning and repairing Drive C” and this was about 25 minutes before the start of class. After what seemed like forever, it finally rebooted just about 5 minutes before class time. Phew!

At that moment, I was reminded of the importance of having a plan B. I mean, technology is great and often 99.999% reliable but you never can tell when the 0.0001% error will show up. It goes without saying that you should always have a backup plan as a teacher.

To be honest with you, I haven’t learned my lesson yet. I still haven’t created back-ups since Tuesday because the laptop has been working perfectly after that episode LOL but maybe next week I will! So, my plan is to upload my slides and materials for each week on Google drive so I can access them from anywhere if something goes wrong. I could also back up my back-up plan by printing out hard copies of slides and materials but that would mean having a lot of paper to throw away after a while. Anyways we’ll see.

Do you use technology in your classroom? If you do, how do you back up your plans for the times when technology acts up?   

This has got to be the most boring post ever but I’m glad you made it up to this point.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next post!

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Restored To Teacher Settings

Hello! It’s been a minute but now I’m back! I have been away from this space for too long, so please forgive me. It’s amazing to see how the number of views increased even when I was on my self-awarded sabbatical. Wow, thank you so much for hanging in there, I’ll make an effort to be more engaging. 

So, let me try to fit in the past six months or so into this blog post. Since the last time that I posted, I’ve received my TKT results- Band 4, 3 and 3 respectively, I took the CELTA course and got a Pass B, completed my teacher training program and graduated from Hokkaido University of Education, Asahikawa and I am now a Language Instructor with Interac Japan, assigned to two Japanese Junior High Schools to teach English. Phew! 

My one year of teacher training sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education was great. I learned a lot from observing English language lessons but I did not get any chance to teach English. I am so elated and grateful for another chance to further understudy the Japanese Educational system, this time as an EFL teacher. This is a career-dream come true for me as I have always aspired to experience teaching abroad, learn all the good stuff as a means to achieving my main career goal- contributing to the professional development of teachers in Nigeria and invariably, to building the educational sector. I will be sharing my experiences and try to carry us along on this journey and I suggest you turn on your post notifications so you don’t miss out on the yummy stuff. 

That said, let’s get down to it. So, this week I reverted to default settings as I returned to the other side of the classroom. I was surprised to feel the heebie-jeebies, I mean, I’m a CELTA certified, experienced English teacher!  At least that’s what my LinkedIn profile says LOL! It was so bad that I barely slept a wink as I worried about whether or not my school will receive me well, I wondered if my students had ever met a black person before and if they’ll respond to me well and blah blah blah. Note that I was fully prepared for my first lesson, with more than enough materials but I guess anxiety happens to the best of us. 

Anyways, my school received me warmly! The welcome notes left on the table and the shoes and coat lockers calmed me down a bit. Still, I couldn’t wait to meet the people I was employed to serve. Fast forward to my first class, first grade class of about 40 students. As the JTE (Japanese teacher of English) readied the class and introduced me, I got a moment to breathe and smile as I scanned the classroom. Spurred on by the curiosity in the shy eyes that looked away as our eyes met and the daring ones who stared back as if to say “bring it on”, I bellowed “hello” in my most impressive teacher voice and history was made! My first class was fun, and every other class after that- well all but one. Getting one of the third-grade groups to respond was like pulling teeth!  They seemed more resistant but no worries we’ve still got one whole year to go!   

Let me quickly say that teaching English in an EFL setting could be very frustrating as you desire to reach and connect with your students who do not speak English at all and are resistant to learning a language which they have no chance to speak outside the classroom and consider an extra burden. You are their gateway to this whole new world shrouded in a foreign language and the only chance they probably get to practise is with you so do your best with it and help them to love learning English!

To cut the long story short, all my experience and training didn’t fail me as I used gestures, a lot of pictures, ICQs, acted silly, and danced at some point to reach my students. Of course, I pulled out my trump card: showing great interest in the students’ interest which worked out well as always. The atmosphere lit up as I asked the students about their favourite anime/music/games. Lots of hands went up when I asked them to recommend me good ones to pass time during the golden week (10-day holiday from April 27th till May 6th) and I passed a book around for them to write their recommendations in. One student took it a step further and brought me three of her favourite comic books the next day. 

Ten lessons later, 5 lunchtime engagements in between, I am fully back to English teacher mode and going to rock the golden week like a boss as I prepare to meet my other students at my second school after the holidays. 

I need to end this post now because I’ve got a busy holiday schedule ahead you see. I’ll be reading comics, watching anime and listening to music recommended by my kids. 

Please leave a note in the comment section, let me know you got to this point. 

Let's travel this road together!  

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The Blog Master Academy: For Teacher Bloggers and Emerging Teacher Bloggers

Happy New Year teacher slayers!

2016 was such an amazing year for me in my teaching career- I learnt a lot and put a lot into practice, now I know what works for me and the children entrusted to me, I know what can be improved on and what is an absolute no-no!

Also, 2016 was the year that I met some awesome bloggers on the blogosphere, the year that my blogging skills took on wings and flew to new heights.

I started off a blog post which was supposed to be the first of a tutorial on how to start a teaching blog but towards the end of last year, I got so caught up with improving myself in some areas where I felt deficient that I hardly had time to blog. I hope to share my lessons of 2016, soon.

Anyways, I would continue the series of blogging posts but I came across very useful information for every teacher who aspires to add blogging to their CV.

The BlogMaster Academy, Nigeria's first career development institution for bloggers, invites you to register for awesome programs as the 2017 Academic Session kicks off in January.

The Academy offers 1 day, 4 days, 2 weeks and 4 weeks programs for aspiring, rookie and emerging bloggers.

Courses  include:

1. StartUP Blogger Program
2. Student Blogger Program
3. BlogPRENEUR Program
4. The PHOTO Blogger Program
5. MOM Blogger Program
6. Tribe Blogger Program
7. Blog Money Bootcamp
8. Blog Marketing 411
9. Google Adsense Essentials
10. Blogger & Wordpress Essentials
11. Niche Blogging Masterclass
12. Career Blogging Masterclass
13. Corporate Blogging Masterclass
14. Creative Content Development & Marketing
15. Basic Graphics Design For Bloggers
16. Personal Brand Building For Bloggers
17. Corporate Networking For Bloggers

Other Programs offered include:

1. 30 DAYS BLOGGING CHALLENGE – Become a pro blogger in 30 days. Grow your blog traffic, popularity and income potential. We’ll give you Daily To-Dos, Topics To Write On, Tools For Optimization & Monetization, etc.

2. THE BLOGMASTER NETWORK – Join a growing community of bloggers spread out across Nigeria. The Network provides a platform for making connections, learning, growing and earning.

Also take advantage of the BLOGGING SUPPORT SERVICES as follows:

* BlogCreator – Helps you create and design/redesign your blog.
* BlogManager – helps manage your blog for a specified time.
* GhostBlogger – Let’s blog on your behalf behind the scenes while you take all the credit on the frontlines.
* NicheFinder – work with you to find the perfect niche for your blog.
* BlogBuzz – helps create buzz for your blog via Multiple Advertising Platforms.
* BlogCash – helps you monetize your blog so you can start making money from it.
* ContentVault – handles content development & deployment for your blog.

For ALL enquiries, contact the Dean on 08148952100, 09053565244, 08035533391
Email: dean@theblogmaster.org, blogmasteracademy@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/BlogMasterForum
Twitter: www.twitter.com/1BlogMaster
Instagram: www.instagram.com/1blogmaster
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+TheBlogMaster

www.theblogmaster.org 

I hope you take advantage of the opportunity and make 2017 that year when you make a difference one blog post at a time.

CIAO

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Teacher Blogging Series- Part 1 [Setting Up your Blog]

Finally, the blogging series for teachers is here! Over the next few weeks, I will be putting up blog posts to guide you on how to set up your professional educator blog. To read up on why teachers need to own a blog and what can be done with it, check out the review of a WhatsApp training which I organised for teachers here. 

You can use any blogging platform you like such as Wordpress, Blogger, Edublogs but this tutorial is suited to Blogger which is the platform that I use. In my opinion, blogger is easier to use, especially for new bloggers. Tutorials on how to set up a blog on other platforms may come later.
Tech-savvy teachers may not need the step-by-step guidance below, hopefully, in subsequent posts, you will get to learn new things.

Creating Your Blog

1: Get a Gmail account
You need to have a Gmail account to be able to create your blog. If you do not have one you can create one here.
Your Gmail is what you'll use to sign into google blogger which you can access here.

2: Title, Blog URL and Template
As soon as you sign into blogger, click on "New Blog"if you see the screenshot below, then you are on the right path.

Type in your blog name in the Title Box e.g Teacher Lola's Blog, My Maths Fun Blog, Diary of a Science Teacher etc. 
Choose an address for your blog, this is what your readers will use to access your blog. Be sure to choose an easy-to-remember blog name so your readers can keep finding their way back. The blogspot.com will be added automatically to any web address you choose and will remain until you purchase your own domain name. For example, my blog used to be oneteacher2anoda.blogspot.com when I purchased my domain space it became www.teacherlola.com. More on domain name purchase in subsequent posts.
Next, choose a template. From the screen shot above, Simple has been selected. You can always change the look of your blog as many times until you get one you are satisfied with.
Click on the orange button "create blog!"

3. The Dashboard
You will be taken to the dashboard environment as shown in the screen shot below.

The dashboard is the blog management centre. A list of the things you can do here has been highlighted in green.
Be sure to start off  with the settings tab to complete the setting up of your blog. The various options under the setting tabs are explained below.
Basic- Here you can change the title of your blog, type in a few words to describe your blog and click on permissions to change the privacy settings. If you want others to edit your blog, in the "Blog Authors"section click Add authors and invite whoever you want using their Gmail address. To select who can view your blog, under Permissions, edit the "Blog Readers" section, choose your preference and Save Changes.

Other sections under the settings tab are Posts, Comments and Sharing, Email, Language and Formatting, Search Preferences, and Other. Go through each section to select your preferences and be sure to Save Changes as you go along. I will advise that the Email, Search Preferences and Other sections be left at default settings although you may want to click No in the Adult Content section under Other.
Change the Time Zone section under Language and Formatting to suit the country in which you reside. 

Now we are good to go! Next blog post will be exclusive tips on how to change how your blog looks. Be sure to follow by email so you never miss a post. 

After all said and done, make my day send me the URL of your brand new blog and I will add you to networks where you can learn more and be inspired to do more. You can post the blog address in the comments section or email it to me. 

Let's get blogging!

CIAO,

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The Millionaire Teacher- A Review

 A few weeks ago, someone gave me an assignment to check out 20 blog sites in my niche and pin point what I like about them so I went on a blog search spree. After several searches, I found lots of cool teacher blogs but I discovered they all had 1 major thing in common- they were all owned and run by non-Nigerians!

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