Asakusa

[Tokyo Skytree]

On a field trip with students of the English Club, we went to Asakusa in order for them to practice their English with foreigners... and to be honest, I wasn't expecting much with the students of my present school, and it doesn't help that the club supervisor lacks assertiveness and enthusiasm. The whole thing was poorly planned and organised. There were no letters to parents, no permission slips, no school trip policy being enforced, no planning, no name lists or emergency contact details, no briefing/emergency info for the students, no aims and objectives of the trip....zilch.  Everything was just agreed upon verbally, and come the day there were some no-shows, with the supervisor not being sure if they were going to turn up, then having to call the school to ask a teacher to phone the students to see if they were coming or not.

And surprise, surprise, the trip had absolutely no relevance at all to learning about English or other cultures. The students sightsaw a Japanese district, and did things like looking at temples and the Skytree, finding out their fortunes using the fortune-telling sticks, and shopping for key straps... wait, I lied, we did do one non-Japanese thing, we ate lunch at Burger King.