School Life

Ah, well, school started and I fell out of love with my blog. Sorry for the delay.

Perhaps it would be a good time to describe school life. Schools here have quite a few differences from schools in the states.
I arrive at school usually about 8:15am and go to the teacher's room. Here, the teachers all reside in one room, their desks made into four groups, one for each grade level (and one 'other' group). I sit in the 1st year group, next to one of the English teachers. At 8:20am, there is a teachers meeting. I have no idea what they talk about, but I have to be sure to arrive before this time or else it is rather awkward. My first class is not until 8:55am, and until then, I do nothing.

My schedule changes everyday, and sometimes week to week as well. I usually am involved in about 3-4 classes a day, 50min each. I either go to the class with the teacher I am teaching with, or students from the class will come and get me. Students in each grade are divided into 3 classes, A, B, and C. There is no difference, it just specifies which room they reside in. Rather than moving from room to room like they do in the states, the students stay in one room while the teachers move.

How much involvement I have in the class varies depending on the teacher. Mostly, though, I am a human tape recorder. I read phrases off the chalkboard, out of the book, off worksheets or flashcards. This is my primary function at the junior high school. Thus far, I haven't been asked to do my planning on my own, which is fine by me. I much prefer being a tape recorder to making lesson plans.

The students are.... sometimes quite a challenge. Discipline is done differently here, primarily, out of class. Thus, sometimes the students are quite rude, loud, or just plane crazy, running around, interrupting the lesson, making things difficult. The sort of things they put up with in class would never be tolerated in the states. I am not sure how discipline is handled here, but it is away from the eyes of one's peers. To me, this is very frustrating just as a matter of principle. At the same time, since I am not expected to plan the lessons, the fact that we don't usually get through them isn't really my problem, so I don't worry about it.

Actually, to me, the way English is taught here seems to be completely inefficient. I feel as though, if anyone was to learn English, it would be in spite of the lessons, not because of them. The emphasis is heavily on 'communication'. This is very important of course, but generally, I think, should be taught in addition to grammar, not replacing it. Learning only 'conversation' basically means they learn only set phrases and set vocabulary for those phrases, often in a rather random fashion (so they don't build on each other). Personally, as a language learner myself, I believe that if you don't learn grammar, if you don't know the meaning behind phrases and know how to build them yourself, you will never be able to speak a language. I find evidence of this in the fact that my elementary school students and my junior high school students seem to be at the same level: "My name is Naoki. I like dog. I like book."

At 12:45, school lunch begins. As I said before, everyone eats school lunch, even the teachers. Homeroom teachers eat lunch in the classroom with their students. Everyone else eats at their desk in the teacher's room. This is where I eat. The meal is so packed with calories, I usually am full half way through. Students carry the food in bins up the classroom, put on smocks and hats, and serve the food to their peers in the class where they eat, at their desks. It is very cute to see the smaller students in their little white serving uniforms.

After lunch, all the students clean. Desks are pushed out of the way, broom are taken out, the floors are swept and scrubbed. This includes not only the classrooms, but the hallways and stairwells as well. No janitors are employed here. The students do it themselves, everyday.

I only go to the elementary school once a week, on Friday. Things are done a little differently here. First off, I have to write the lesson plans for the 4th grade. This is very difficult to me, and I have so say, I absolutely loathe doing it. I always make them too difficult. Everyone says to me 'oh, just make it easier', but that is not so easy to do! I am given a list of vocab and a goal to accomplish, but I discovered, the students cannot read or write or repeat phrases of any length. I discovered that I actually cannot even use all the vocab I am expected to teach. Learning all this has made for some pretty painful planning lessons. Now that I know they they can do basically nothing except repeat after me, perhaps it will be a little easier. Most likely not, since that severely limits the sorts of lessons I can do.

For the other grades, there is a lesson plan already set out by the book. It is generally more equal (as far as involvement between myself and the Japanese teacher) than the JHS lessons. We do little skits to introduce vocab, and usually have flashcards with much repeating. Other differences... I eat lunch with the students in the classroom and I clean with them as well.

Generally, I have to say this job is pretty damn easy. It may get a little more challenging later on, as I may be expected to do a little more planning, but, for the chance to make good money, to be in Japan, I think it is a pretty sweet deal.