Japanese Camp

This week Matthew attended Japanese camp. For those of you who don't know, last Spring the school district chose to make Matthew's school their newest immersion school. They use a part time immersion where math and science are taught in the "target" language with reading and social studies taught in English. To help ease kids into the program the school offered this two day, half day language camp.

I should have anticipated it, but I hadn't realized that at the language camp the teachers would only be speaking Japanese. It is, afterall, the model. So, I hadn't prepared Matthew at all for the fact that his teacher, Michiko Sensei (I think that is what she's going by, Matthew is a little scarce on the details), would only be speaking Japanese.

I may have enjoyed myself a little too much (it had been a rough morning) as I watched Matthew being greeted by his teacher the first morning. He had a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes combined with a nervous smile that seemed to say, "I have no idea what this lady is talking about." But, despite the initial shock, he really did enjoy himself. I've always had some difficulty piecing together a complete picture of his day at school from his scattered accounts and recollections, but I anticipate it's going to be even more tricky figuring out what he's doing when he doesn't know either. I had to chuckle when he reported about the first day, "First we did math, um, I think it was math." He got smarter about just telling the things that he did and not trying to guess at the subject that he was supposed to be learning.

We're so excited that he has the opportunity to be part of this program! It's going to be quite an adventurous year!