Ashbury Interviews

After school today interviews were held to see which kids get to go to Canada on the Ashbury Exchange Program. 23 students applied for 12 spots, so the interviews lasted a pretty long time, and were very stressful for all the students. Basically it was all the English teachers and I interviewing the students in groups of 4 or 5, only using English. Some of the students did very well (actually much better than they are ever able to speak in class), while others completely froze (Hugh Wickham style, which those who were in MMEDIA something will know is not a good way to freeze). They had to start off with a one minute speech about themselves in English (no cue cards or anything). One girl said her whole speech (nearly flawlessly) without ever looking away from me, or blinking, which was nice but also a bit awkward because it is a challenge for me to smile for an entire minute. Anyway, they said some funny things, so here are some examples:

“My big sister is very smart. My little sister is… not smart, but my big sister and me are trying to help her.”

Nohmi sensei: “Pretend I am your host mother, what would you say to me when you first meet me?”
Student: “Hello”

“It is 13 years old. It likes English very much, and it wants to visit Canada.”

Me: “What kind of present do you want to get on your birthday?” then “A book? A game? Anything is ok”
Student: “I want a pencil”

Kakio sensei: “You can see your best friend is crying, what would you do for her?”
Student: “Stand… by” (she is ni nen sei, so this was actually a really good answer)
Kakio sensei: “What would you say to her?”
Student: “Nothing, just stand by”

Me: “What two languages do we speak in Canada?”
Student: “English and Spanish?”
Me: “No”
Student: “English and Japanese?”
Me: “Um, no”
Student: “English and Mexican?”
Me: “Mexican is not a language. Here’s a hint: ‘bonjour’”
Student: “English and Chinese?”
Me: “Well, not the right answer”
Student: “English and France? I mean Furansugo, I mean French?”
Me: “Very good”

Translating Discipline

Today I had two ni nen sei classes, and for whatever reason they are invariably my most difficult students to teach. Last week they were on a workplace visit program, so they had no classes, and this week they seemed way worse than usual (probably a combination of being away from class, and my getting to used to the other classes). Anyway, today’s classes didn’t go well, and I had to yell more than usual (which is not at all).

By the second class I was already pretty frustrated with them, and then the Japanese teacher told me I had to be more strict because “some students are too rude”. This bugged me quite a bit, not just because they said discipline isn’t supposed to be our job (I never assumed that would actually work), but because I actually can’t say anything to them that they will understand, besides the basics like “stop talking” and “be quiet”. I can of course say these things louder, and make the same kids repeat the answers when they were talking, but without someone to explain why I’m doing this in Japanese I feel like it’s kinda pointless.

Anyway, in the second class there was one student right in front of me that kept turning around and talking to the guy behind him while I was talking. At first I was just calm about asking him to turn around and be quiet, then I was saying it more loudly, then I was basically just yelling at him, and every time he would just say “sorry sorry, be quiet” and then go back to talking in about a minute. Since you can’t make a kid leave the classroom here, I then made him move his desk to the front of the room, facing the class, and moved his friends away from him. Since this didn’t really make him listen (he wasn’t talking, but was trying really hard to get the attention of the kids who were at this point avoiding him), he also had to repeat just about every answer given by the class. Near the end of the class I moved him back because they had a worksheet to do with their friends, and he started talking again while I was explaining it to them. That made me keep him after class so I could get the Japanese teacher to translate what I was saying. This was a lot more effective. Since I wasn’t just yelling (I was asking things like “Is this how you act for your other teachers, or do you just not want to show me any respect?”), and there was no classroom audience he got quiet pretty quickly.

On the way back to the class the teacher thanked me, but said there are many more students like him. I am a bit curious to see what that class is like when I am not there.

Japanese Students

In the last few days there have been a few instances that really showed off the differences between Japanese students and what I expect Canadian students to be like:

Bingo: We were playing with words like cloud, cloudy, wind, windy, etc. No one cheated, not even when they only needed sunny, for example, and I called sun.

Morning Announcements: Teachers (all of them) have a meeting with announcements in the morning, and the students just take care of themselves. In the nearly 10 months I’ve been here there has never been a problem.

Attendance: They don’t take attendance, they just assume everyone will be there.

Rewards: I was giving out stamps (like using a rubber stamp and ink) for participation, and after one girl answered a question she said no thank you to the stamp, because she had accidentally gotten one too many the class before.

More Pictures of Mom and Mel

A couple nights ago we went for a Tajima Gyu (Kobe beef) dinner, which was really good. Yesterday mom and Mel came to my special needs class with me, and then after school I drove them up to Takeda Castle (my mom kept talking about how Mel had to see it, but neither of us wanted to walk). Anyway, here are some pictures:

See the Whole Album

Marla and Andrea at Asago JHS

On Wednesday night Andrea arrived in Japan, and then yesterday her and Marla came to school with me. We had two ichi nen sei classes with Kakio sensei, so it was a pretty good day. All the kids were really excited to have so many foreigners, and it was good because the lesson was “Hello, my name is…” They also got to meet some of the more interesting/cute students, like brown hair (her hair is brown, not black), handsome macho Ken (he introduced himself as that), and baby monkey (she looks like a baby monkey). Marla and Andrea seemed to enjoy themselves, and the kids had a lot of fun, partly because we played more games than usual, which meant more stitch stickers. Sorry there are no pictures though, no one thought to take any.