January 22nd, 2008
Called To The Principal’s Office
I was eager to go to school today; the heater in my room was acting up, so I wanted to ride the train to get warm. Well, OK, it wasn’t quite that bad, but the heater seems to be crashing on me more and more often. I am going to have to say something soon.
I arrived at the train station at the usual time and got off in Fukuyama on time. I walked up the mountain to the school. This really isn’t a mountain; it’s more like a big hill. I usually stop and sit on a particular wall about halfway up for a break, but I really don’t have to rest. Today, there were a bunch of people out in the road, so I didn’t stop. I just went right on up to the top and into the school. This non-break meant I arrived in the office about 10 minutes earlier than usual. I stopped in the office and picked up my replacement train tickets, and then walked to the other building where the teacher’s lounge is. I noticed the assistant principal heading out to the street. I assumed he was looking for me and waved to get his attention, but he turned the corner before he saw me. He eventually caught up with me in the teachers room, but I think he believed I was later than usual rather than early. It doesn’t really matter since it was still well before class time.
The “main” principal called me into his office. He doesn’t speak a word of English, so he had one of “my” teachers there to help him. He asked me if I had already eaten lunch, and I told him no, but there wasn’t time to do anything about that because I had class in ten minutes. He offered me coffee and a little plate of something like jelly marshmallows. They weren’t bad, but he did insist that eat them all. I don’t really think he wanted anything other than to welcome me to their school. He was in the initial meeting I had before Christmas, but I haven’t seen him since. It turns out he was in the hospital and just came back to work. It was time to go, so I thanked him in Japanese and got to work. He wants me to come in an hour early next Tuesday for lunch. Oh yay.
The most annoying thing about this school is the slippers. You have to take your shoes off and put on slippers at the door. That’s not unusual, and many of my assignments are the same. The problem here is that this is not one building but a campus, and there is a lot of running out of one building and into another. With my coat in one hand and my briefcase in the other, it’s hard to change shoes. It’s especially bad when the teacher accompanying you gives you that “impatient look.”
My Movie Lesson Gets a “Thumbs Up”
Class starts, and I begin by explaining “Movie Terms” like Actor/Actress, Plot, Climax, Category, and Setting. There were six or seven new terms, nothing excessive. I then wrote the questions on the board that I described yesterday, and filled it in with information about several popular movies. They guessed “Star Wars” and “The Terminator,” but I don’t think any of them had ever heard of “The Wizard of Oz.” Has that movie finally lost popularity with children, or is it just a Japanese thing?
I then handed out a sheet with a similar form for them to fill out with three movies of their choosing. I broke the class into two teams, and told them they had to work on their own movies, but they could talk and work together to describe their movies. I gave them about 15 minutes to work, but they could have used more time. Some of them struggled, but most smiled as they filled in the blanks. I think this activity was just about at exactly the level I needed it to be.
With about ten or twelve minutes left in the class, I had them take their seats again, but still in their teams. I had one volunteer come to the front of the room and read their movie description. Then the other team had to guess what movie they were talking about. If the other team guessed, they got a point. If they couldn’t guess then the volunteer’s team got a point. The first person reading their movie description in each class was nervous, but after the first one was over and the others saw how it went, they were jumping up and down and racing each other to the front of the room to try to stump their classmates. I haven’t seen so much excitement outside of the kindergarten since I arrived here. This lesson was a major hit!
Naturally, I repeated the same thing for all three classes. The teachers said it was fantastic, and they seemed as shocked at the students’ excitement as I was. They said I should do something similar next week too. Hmm. I wonder how I will work that? I did tell them I would come up with something revolving around movies again, since it seems to be a good “common ground” starting point for all of us. Beyond, that… I’ll have to think hard to come up with something to beat this one.
Oh Drizzle!
Then it was time to go, and the assistant principal caught up with me again, and insisted on driving me to the station. It was freezing and raining outside, so I didn’t even begin to protest. I thanked him profusely at the station and rode home on the train, listening to more podcasts all the way. Once reaching Okayama, I had to wait a half hour for the train to Hokaiin, and it was soooooo cold tonight! Reaching Hokaiin, I picked up my bicycle and rode in the rain to the Carryout and ordered a few small items and then hurried home. The rain wasn’t much more than a sprinkle, but it was cold enough that it wasn’t any fun. I arrived home just in time to eat and watch the last fifteen minutes of the Japanese language version of Doctor Who on the TV.
Use It Or Lose It
And then I had some homework of my own to do. With my Hiroshima adult classes, I have a sort of ongoing assignment with them. They write a page or so of a letter or diary to me, and I write a letter back in response. I don’t correct their mistakes or comment on their grammar at all, I simply write them back a letter responding to what they wrote. I originally gave all my classes the option to do this, but only the early class on Wednesday actually took advantage of my offer, and not even all of them do it, but several do, and they seem to enjoy it. One of them wrote about visiting a mountain, and I responded with a (brief version) of my own mountain climbing story. Another went fishing at night with his father, so I asked him why they do it at night. And so forth.
I don’t care terribly much whether their grammar is perfect or not, I just want to give them more practice and experience actually using their English. That seems to be the main thing in Japan. Most students get at least some English in school, but they forget all of it simply by not having the opportunity to actually use it. A foreign language really is a “use it or lose it” kind of thing.
And that’s about it. It’s now 9:00 and I have no special plans to do much of anything else tonight. Maybe I’ll read or listen to some kind of audio book or podcast or something. I could just go to bed early for once…nah!
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