Christmas Lessons at Toyotama High

Yoshida-sensei and I gave the Toyotama first-years the same Christmas lesson as Tsushima High. They enjoyed it, with several students turning the cards into creative love letters in English. (That's Kouji on the left, and the card reads "I love your bottom half.")

When I asked my first-years how to say "Iesu Cristo" (the version from which Jesus' name was translated into Japanese) in English, one of my cleverer boys calmly replied "Ieyasu Tokugawa."

The second-years, however, already learned my basic Christmas lesson last year. Iwase-sensei and I decided to focus more on the nativity story. As with our Halloween lesson, we noticed some cultural differences arising from her experience in Ireland versus my experience in America. Sniffing around online, I discovered the account of Jesus' birth that I learned as a kid is a lot more piecemeal than I was led to believe.

Iwase and I settled on this account to present to the students: there was a woman named Mary, whose husband was named Joseph. She was pregnant. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. All the hotels were full*, and they had to sleep in a room with cows.** Near Bethlehem, shepherds were resting with their sheep. An angel came to them, and said, "Jesus has been born! Go and see him." The shepherds followed a star to Bethlehem, and gave Jesus gifts. Three wise men also followed the star, found Jesus, and gave him gifts.

After preparing this as a handout, it turned into an engaging discussion as we coaxed the translation from the class. This is why Iwase's my favorite teacher: thanks to the size of Toyotama, she teaches all the English classes for all the second-years, after having done the same last year for the same students. She knows all of them better than anybody outside their families, and has a pretty good idea who knows the answers to which questions, and--better yet--how to phrase questions to jog their memories.

Finishing that, we taught them a Christmas carol. We'd spent a while searching for a song slow and comprehensible enough for the students to understand and sing along. The day before class, Iwase suggested the Wexford Carol, an Irish carol she had learned as a kid. I'd never heard it before, but after finding it on YouTube, I loved it. Apart from sounding beautiful, it tells the nativity story, making it a nice follow-up for the nativity discussion.

Though we'd decided on the song, we couldn't find a suitable recording of it. I found a couple of YouTube videos, but it was hard to discern the lyrics. Iwase hesitantly suggested that we sing it for the class. Thanks to the Glee Club, Chorus D, and karaoke, I really don't mind standing in front of people and singing, so I immediately agreed. She's much shier than me, which made it all the more surprising when she belted it out with me in front of both classes.

The students listened in total silence, politely declining our invitation to join in. All in all, I'd say the activity could have gone better, but it was fun for everyone.



*It was either this or "there wasn't any place to stay on account of the census of Quinius."
**Oddly, "stable" and "manger" aren't part of the standard English curriculum for Japanese students.