And the Winner of the First Annual, Tachikawa SLANGfest is...

Today Tomomi and I were trying to figure out more interesting ways to say that you've had fun than "That was great!" or "I had fun!" And we decided that I should introduc basic slang... all with the meaning of having had fun.

We got to class and got started with a ROUSING game of shiritori (a game where you begin with a word and the last letter of tha word must begin the next word... etc etc etc) and then we started on the slang. Now... if you've ever been in a Japanese junior high classroom you know what I mean when I say that sometimes... kids lack enthusiasm... and at times it's even hard to get them to depart from monotone.

So, I'd had it... we were going to get this kids to put feeling into what they were saying if it's the last thing I did... so, row by row I made it a contest... the liveliest person in each row won the chance to get in front of the class and get judged by their peers. We had 3 boys and 2 girls... as an aside... one boy is actually a student from China, his mom is married to a Japanese man, and he has the best pronunciation of ANY of my students...

so it came down to the wire... TAKUYA is the winner, with "That's COOL!" I have to say I wasn't quite in agreement, mainly because Ryu (chinese kid) has better pronunciation, but I guess I'm the only one who can hear it! :-)