One of my elementary schools is actually following the Maebashi Board of Education’s new curriculum. The fifth and sixth graders have a new unit every week and have to present a finished project at the end. The current theme is “Let’s make a story book.” Last month’s theme was “Let’s be reporters and make a newspaper.” They wrote simple questions in Japanese which their teacher translated for me and I answered in English. Then their teacher translated my answer. Not a whole lot of English practice for the students. But their newspapers about me were pretty cute. My favorite one was done by a group of fifth graders.

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