Brian’s Japan Adventure

January 29th, 2008

The Principal’s Secret

I had to leave about an hour early today because of my appointment to have lunch with the Principal in Fukuyama. It was raining and slushy from last night’s snow, so I decided to walk rather than ride my bike to the station.  I’d rather be a little cold than wind up with a broken arm or something.

We met in the principal’s office and he offered me some cookies, which were fantastic. I’m not entirely sure if he is the principal of the Junior High school or the High School, but it’s most likely probably both.  Then we walked over to the same cafeteria that the assistant principal took Marc and I to a few weeks ago.  I had the “plate lunch” which consisted of:

• Salad. We would call this coleslaw in the US, since it’s basically cabbage with dressing.
• Cold noodles that were very thin and tasted a lot like plain bread
• Vegetables (Onions, potatoes, carrots, and mystery stuff) in some kind of broth
• Miso soup with little fishy things in it
• Giant bowl of rice
• A “Meat Thing.” It tasted like meatloaf, but was the color of chicken. It might have been salmon, but was not particularly fishy.

Can you guess which single item I didn’t eat? The term “fishy things” should set off some alarms right away if you need a hint. Everything else was quite oishii. The principal also didn’t eat quite so fast, so I didn’t have to inhale everything this time.

He spoke very little English, and my Japanese level is still minimal at best.  That being said, I have found that that doesn’t really stop communication if both sides are patient enough and really listen.  I found out, without a word of English, that he was a big-time chain smoker.  He had been smoking four packs a day for the past 35 years.  He had given up smoking as a New Year’s resolution on the first of January. He was using some kind of nicotine gum, but his time on that was nearly up. It was difficult at first, but it is getting easier for him. Yes, all that from a guy with no English.

I thanked him repeatedly and went on to my classes.

Classes Today

I met the teacher for my first and second class and she handed me a note from the teacher of the third class. They are having a practice test for the college entrance exams tomorrow, so today they were going to study for that, so I did not have to teach the third class today. That makes the day a little easier, but the third class is in the middle of the schedule, so that while I do get a break now, I can’t actually go home any earlier.

So I went to my first class, and we briefly reviewed last week’s movie lesson. Some of the students had filled in more movies on the worksheet from last week and wanted to try to stump their classmates, so we briefly played that game again today, but just for fun and without teams.

Then we moved on to another movie activity that came directly out of my TEFL Final Project. I knew those classes were good for something, ha! It was an activity where there were two worksheets, each having information missing that can be found on the other sheet. Students are handed one or the other worksheet and in pairs they have to ask each other questions to learn the missing material. It worked so-so. I thought this activity was actually easier than the one last week, but some of them didn’t quite get it. Still, most of them got through it before the bell rang.

The second class was a repeat of the previous one, but since these students were a year old, they caught on a little more quickly and we just barely ran out of time when the final bell rang. The same teacher, S-Sensei, teaches both the first and second class, and she can be more helpful by the time the second class comes around since she understands what I’m doing by that time.

Then it was time for the third class, which had been cancelled. S-Sensei followed me to the “chat room,” where I was to wait until the chat room scheduled time. She wanted to talk about my activities for future classes. She explained exactly what kind of thing she was looking for, and even gave me copies of activities she had used in the past and told me to use them if I liked them. I did like them, and will use several of them in future classes. Now keep in mind that I have been here for an entire five months, and this is the first time any teacher has actually sat down with me and tried to help me or suggest anything or even tell me clearly what they were looking for. The first time! Now that I actually think this through and come to that realization, I should probably be amazed at how well I have actually done here!  Yes, of course I have made a few mistakes; it’s all been trial and error for the most part.

During our conversation, S-Sensei told me she was “feeling depressed” because her English level is “not so good” and she didn’t know if she was qualified to teach English. Actually, her English is the best of anyone at that school, and yes, I told her so. There’s no way that anyone there could actually know about my blog, but it’s almost as if she had read my post from last Friday about teacher qualifications. I didn’t say a word, but from what she said, I suspect she feels just like I do about unqualified Japanese teachers teaching English. The only thing is she isn’t one of them; her English is slow, but completely understandable. Did you ever notice it’s the people who seem to worry and doubt themselves the most who seem to do the best job?

I’m Set!

Well, anyway, she gave me a bunch of really good worksheets and lesson ideas that could possibly be enough to carry my through the rest of my time here. It’ll certainly help a whole bunch. Most of them can be adapted to any age or lower ability level, so they’ll be good for the kids on Friday, and I may even try a few with the old folks on Wednesday nights.

A Change For Tomorrow

After the chat room class, I walked back to the station (what no ride?) and rode home. I got a call on the train from Y-San about tomorrow. It seems many of the kids at the kindergarten are sick with the flu, so they have asked me not to come tomorrow. OK, now I have to day, that’s pretty darned thoughtful. One thing I really do not want is the flu.  I still have to go to Hiroshima for the Community Center classes, but I can sleep in a bit if I want.

I’m not quite sure of the best way to get to the Center directly from the train station, so I may need to arrive at least a little early in order to figure it out. Usually I take the bus to the Kindergarten and then another bus to the Community Center. I don’t know if there is a bus that goes near to the Center from the train station.  I figure I’ll either take both buses as usual, wasting a bit of time and bus fare, or walk as far as I can to where I know the second bus does go.  Now that I think about it, there must be a bus that goes to the Peace Park, and since it’s a major tourist attraction, they’ll probably have signs in English. It’s not a long walk from there, so I may be in good shape after all.

Then it was a walk back to the apartment because I didn’t ride my bike this morning. I stopped by the carryout and picked up my usual. I wasn’t even all that hungry after the large lunch this afternoon, but I managed to fit it all in anyway. I’m going to have to start cutting back on the junk food pretty soon if I want the people at home to recognize me. I’ve put on… well, only three pounds, but I expected to lose a bunch while I was here.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 9:20 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.