Brian's Japan Adventure

October 29^th, 2007

Discussions and Donuts

I read a little bit this morning and eventually meandered up the mountain to do this morning’s class. I stopped in at Mrs. Y’s office and told her everything went well and to maybe expect a call sometime for a Christmas party. She was happy that it all went well; she obviously wasn’t completely sure about those people. 

Then it was time for N-Sensei’s class. These were the students who had so much trouble reading last week, and I said I would tone it down a bit for them this week. I did tone things down, quite a lot in my opinions. I talked more slowly, more precisely, with more repetition, most writing on the board, more simplicity in my vocabulary.  It didn’t help. I’m tempted to just say these kids are dumber than a box of rocks, but at this point I’m still going to accept the blame and try to make it a little easier next week.  In all bluntness, I am not sure why I am doing that class. The kids in this class are not getting any benefit from hearing me as a native speaker if I have to talk that unnaturally slow. I think at their level, they would probably do better with a Japanese person teaching them English. They seem to follow N-Sensei just fine when he explains things.  Oh well, next week I’ll try it again, even slower and more carefully. 

Break time; I ran downstairs to the convenience store and bought a pack of donuts and a mini-carton of orange juice. In retrospect, a carton of coffee would have been a better choice. It sure is convenient knowing that store is there. It’s actually better stocked than the regular convenience store on the corner of my street. Too bad it’s on the top of a mountain buried under university buildings.  I sat around listening to my iPod as I waited for Japanese class. I study a little bit too, but I know the current chapter by heart. Marc really is slowing me down substantially. 

Watashi wa Nihongo o Hanashimas 

Then Marc showed up and we entered the classroom together. I know he did his homework and has been studying this past weekend. Not a lot, but some at least; better than usual. Y-Sensei still hammered him pretty hard about not knowing the entire alphabet on sight. Yes, he should have had it memorized a couple of weeks ago, but I will grant him that it is hard to remember all of them, especially when the pressure is on.  She talked a bit more about splitting the class up, but so far, no real action.  

She did mention that if we split up, we still both have to take final exams, but his might be on more basic material than mine. Huh?  I’m not sure if she was simply pointing out once again that he was behind me, or if she was saying he will get an easier exam because he’s lazy and they don’t want a failure on their record (for all I know the language school might “guarantee” success or something). As I said before, I don’t need a grade in the class, so I don’t really have any vested interested in caring one way or the other, but that hardly seems fair. Then again, this is the real world now, not academia; I get the benefit of learning and knowing more of the language than he does; what difference does a grade make?  These Zen books that I have been reading must be having an effect me; I’d have ranted and whined about that all weekend normally. Today, I don’t care and I’m just letting it go. 

When class was over, I zipped over to Happy Town for a refill of the usual stuff, and hurried back since it looked like rain. I timed it just right. I wasn’t back to minutes and the downpour started.  It didn’t last long, but it would have been very unpleasant to ride a bicycle through. 

So next up, I get to plan for tomorrow. The first class should be easy. Last time we got halfway through reading an article in N-Sensei’s reading book as well as about halfway through a stack of idiom worksheets. We can finish those two things, and then I want to do something with the “Business English” textbook the one student loaned me last week. I don’t really want to do business vocabulary, but one student wants it pretty badly, so I guess I can do it. For the second class, only one student was there last week, and she wanted to talk about Halloween.  I have some stories printed out, and I am going to make a Halloween vocabulary sheet tonight. We’ll get through the class just fine. 

Can They Rotate My Tires At Least?

 While at Takahashi last week, the coordinator talked to Marc about going to some kind of special function in late November or December. Marc called it the Rotary Club, but I doubt that it’s really the Rotary Club. I expect she’ll tell me about it tomorrow as well. One thing Marc was clear on is that there is no pay involved. Sigh. What exactly does the Rotary Club do, anyway? I thought they were just some businessman’s association. If that’s the case, why do they have branches all the way over here? No point in speculating on the information I have; details tomorrow I assume.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Japan, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.