I have been fortunate to teach a vivacious, kind-hearted and diligent group of Y7 students this year, and this post is dedicated to them - as promised! I have written before about magical moments in teaching English, and I have had many of those with this class this year. Lessons always involved a million superfluous questions and unstifled giggles - but when the time came do their work, they did it with grace and focus.

One standout lesson was in our Animal Poetry module, when we analysed the famous Frog Haiku by Matsuo Bashô (1644-1694), one of the great masters of Japanese Haiku. The haiku form, traditional and structured, is 5/7/5: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Haikus, in their simplicity, are known to paint a vivid picture with very few words. In its original Japanese, Bashô’s poem reads:

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

The most basic English translation presents the natural imagery:

The old pond
A frog jumps in.
Sound of water.

The poem has many translations, each one slightly different, with some activating the water sound. Sound effects are the life of language, so my preferred translation adds that sensory element:

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!

In the spirit of this lovely haiku lesson, and in tribute to the humour and dedication of my Y7s - which made all our lessons so much fun - I wrote this haiku for them:

Hands up - and giggles!
Laughter gives way to focus -
nature in action.

I was always amazed by how their liveliness transformed into calm effort, and exploded again with energy - that was their nature in action - and that dynamic combination is sure to be the key to their great success.