A Magic Moment I Want to Share

I managed to capture a pretty special moment on video this week. One of my students volunteered to recount our first story in Japanese in front of the class, by looking at a story map she created. We had several students do this actually, each covering the story in a different way, but I thought I would just share one. What they did is great considering they’ve only been learning Japanese for about 4 weeks, but what I really loved was how supportive the class was! The impromptu applause, the cheers, yelling etc. it was so nice to capture the excitement of a class rallying behind one of their own. This was the first moment that anyone in the class had spoken Japanese before and there was a lot of anticipation surrounding what was going to come out of her mouth. I think the celebration of the speaker was, in part, some sort of recognition that they all had similar potential in them – you can hear one of the larrikins in the front row say “it’s actually perfect”, which is an interesting takeaway in and of itself.

I’ve got permission from the student and their family to show the footage, but I obscured her face for her anonymity – I just wish you could see how happy she was with herself.