Almost two weeks

Almost two weeks since I last wrote... how does that happen?  I'm convinced I write really often, when pressed saying I write once or twice a week, but it's actually much, much less than that! 

In all fairness, lately I've been pretty busy.  The school speech competition is on this afternoon so I've been working late every day for the last couple of weeks to coach the students.  Unfortunately it also coincided with the upcoming exam (Mar 2nd), which I was required to write a portion of.  The Listening section was ok - I did the same thing last exam - but I really had no idea what was required of me for the Writing section.  Usually the instructions are all in Japanese, so even looking at old exams wasn't super helpful.  However, in looking through old exams I remembered that last time the teacher had borrowed one of my old in-class vocabulary quizzes and included that in the exam, so I thought maybe that's what the teacher organising this one was on about.  He was super unclear, but I made a new vocab quiz and handed it over.  He hasn't come back to me with any changes necessary, so I guess it was ok... 

The only problem is, the teacher I was working with last exam is very confident.  When I first started I got a bad impression of her because she changed my lesson plan, which had a follow-through effect of meaning that in following lessons, her classes had covered different stuff and in a different order to all my other classes, so I needed to make adjusted lesson plans for her group, when everyone else follows the same plan.  BUT I quickly came to realise that she's confident because she's good and she's willing to tell me what to change because she knows her students capabilities.  In a short time she became one of my favourite teachers to work with.  As such, when my exam questions were too hard/easy she was perfectly happy to come back to me and tell me what to change. 

On the other hand... the teacher maknig the exam this time is a shy little bird of a man.  I know it's not the first time I've scared a bloke, but I'm not used to also feeling physically imposing when working with a guy.  He is a slender, quiet man, almost a head shorter than me.  I think his English is good, but he's so busy talking around the subject instead of being blunt and he would never be rude enough to tell me he disagreed or didn't understand, so I find him really hard to communicate with.  He is one of those people that is so busy trying to be agreeable that it's very hard to find out what they want from a situation.  As such... I have no idea if that was what he wanted or not.  But I'm guessing that will be what goes in the exam! 

Yesterday was a relatively uneventful day at Tode.  I'm not sure why I always end up blogging about Tode.  Perhaps because it's only my visit school I feel less disrepectful talking about them,  Or maybe it's because I don't lead the lesson so I get to observe (and comment on!) the teaching of others. 

Anyway, yesterday I DIDN'T scream at my teacher who compulsively translates everything, although I was fantasising about it.  I admit I did snap out "I said I will read it three times, so I will read it three times" when he cut me off after once to translate the question for the students and ask a student to answer the question.  If he is going to translate it for the students (and sometimes write it on the board), why does he bother preparing me with the question in English, but deletes it from the students handout?  I assumed the point of the exercise was listening practise (and English practise), but when he's translating and writing, I wonder why he doesn't save himself the time and leave it on the kid's handouts in the first place... 

But I am trying to work in little ways to challenge the kids, even if he is busy undermining his own teaching.  I do simple things, like walk around the class to check the students have their textbooks open and at the right page (about a 50% hit rate); tapping their book during listening exercises to draw their attention to the fact they should be listening and writing, not talking or reading a comic; and my latest one being reading the question three times to allow the kids who want to try to get a good listen to the English and take a guess at the answer before the teacher translates it for them. 

The other thing he does that drives me crazy is he tells the students who he will ask to answer BEFORE we do the exercise, so only the student(s) who will be called on ever bother listening.  I can't blame the students for being so lazy when he never, ever challenges them, but it will really affect them when they change to a different teacher next year. 

In the next lesson, with the teacher who often displays an assumption that Japanese culture is world culture ("You don't bow, even if you're really sorry??"), he again didn't really know how to use me.  Two weeks ago he had asked me to prepare a slide show on 'travel', which I narrowed down to castles (I think I mentioned it on here?).  Anyway, last week he was actually absent, but nobody told me on the assumption that he told me the week before, which he HADN'T.  So I had this super awkward conversation with a relieving Japanese teacher, where I was trying to ask if he wanted me in the class but couldn't work out the Japanese to manage.  All the English teachers had buggered off somewhere and there was no-one to ask for help.  Finally I told him I would do my 20 min castles talk, by which time some English teachers were back in the office to be our translators.  Considering there was no translator during the talk, it was pretty successful.  I asked the kids if they knew a certain building and they all agreed they didn't.  Then I showed a picture of inside - and they all successfully identified it with a scream of "Harry Potter!"  Yes, it is the set of the hallways next to the courtyard in that internationally popular film! 

Anyway, this week the teacher never mentioned his having been absent and never brought up the slideshow at all (I thought I would be showing it again with translation this time).  Instead, he asked me to come in 15 minutes late because the kids had a test.  When I arrived, they were still busy doing the test.  Finally the teacher asked them to do an exercise in pairs.  There was an uneven number, so I went and sat in the spare seat to work with the students.  I don't know if it was because I was sitting with the kids so the teacher forgot who I was, or whether because I was tired I was understanding less Japanese and body language than usual, but the teacher kept giving instructions then looking at me expectantly.  Only problem, the instructions were all in Japanese.  I was too tired to be very helpful, just following the students or looking at him quizically until he threw out a page number of something English.  He clearly had no idea he was doing it, because he never apologised or anything.  Just gave me strange looks when I gave him my "you know I don't speak Japanese, right?" face. 

In my last class, I had an amusing experience (apologies if you already read this on facebook).  Three kids were discussing my hair colour and the difference between the dyed ends and the regrowth on top (a year's worth of regrowth, yikes!).  I explained the top was my natural colour, that I only had it dyed in NZ.  One boy (who looks like he spends a good two hours with the straighteners every morning!) scrutinised me, then declared it was 'pudding coloured'.  I thought that was so funny!  (For clarification, for those that are not up with Japanese culture, 'pudding' is the consistency of the old Instant Puddings that parents used to make when we were young, with the flavour of creme brulee.  Likewise creme brulee colour.  Oooh... 'creme brulee' hair... I might have just invented a new colour!  I can sell it to L'oreal and make millions!) 

Anyway, I totally cracked up, and the class did too.  Only I was laughing at the pudding hair colour, while I think the class was laughing in surprise at seeing how much I was laughing.  Whatever, it was totally a laugh-with, not laugh-at, because Japanese students are way less malicious than Western ones.  Back home teenagers are nasty things (apologies to Laura if you read this!).  That sounds dramatic, but you know what I mean.  Looking back as an adult, almost all the behaviour I'm ashamed of occurred when I was a teen.  Occasionally I torture myself by reading old diaries.  I can never decide whether I was lucky to have friends, behaving like I did, or whether the question is why I hung out with some of the people who behaved like they did!  So I'm not saying you're a bad person for being 16 years old, Laura, merely that you are not quite as good as you are at 11 or 22...  :P

Well, this got super off track (although it does raise an important theme all ALTs can tell you about - the NICENESS of Japanese teens), so I will stop here! 

Hope you are all well and I will try to blog again next week!