So they let me be a teacher...

(Photos of Ochidani)

I have just realized that I haven't really talked about what it's like to actually be a teacher while in Japan, which is the main reason that I'm here. I guess that's because it hasn't really be routine until recently. There have been a lot of days off, random practice days for Sports Festival practice etc. but now things have settled into a rhythm, which I shall now try to explain.

The basics are that I work Monday-Friday. Monday-Thursday from 7:50-4:35, Friday from 7:50-11:50. I don't teach the whole time I'm at school, the most is five 45 minute lessons/day, but that usually is just on Thursdays. Most often I teach three 45 minute lessons/day and fill my time doing miscellaneous things.

Mondays and Thursdays I teach at Kanzaki Junior High (JHS). I have 2 JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) that I work with, Kimura-sensei and Fujimoto-sensei. Fujimoto-sensei I think is more in charge of me that Kimura, as he's usually the one to explain any changes to the class schedule of the day, but that might just be because we sit at the same block of desks. Regardless, they are friendly enough and classes with them are easy for me. I mostly act as a tape recorder in class, pronouncing words in my wonderful Canadian accent, sometimes ad nauseum. (Today's loveliness was saying "toilet" about 20 times). Sometimes I feel bad for the students because it doesn't always feel like learning so much as 45 minutes of "test how fast you can memorize" but ultimately, languages do involve memorization I just wish it wasn't so rapid fire.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I work at an elementary school. Either Awaga (the biggest with around 250 students in total), Ohyama (about 100 students), or Ochidani (about 60 students). Usually I will work two days at Awaga and one at either Ohyama or Ochidani. I am given lesson plans to work with, but because there are so many schools and so many kids, even though I teach more days at elementary schools, it takes about a month for me to have taught the same lesson to all kids. This too can feel a little repetitive, but because every time I go into the classroom at elementary schools, even with the same lesson plan, things change based on the homeroom teacher's understanding of the lesson and understanding of English. Added to this is that I teach the same lesson from grade 1 through to grade 6, so "It's a cat" "It's a monkey" changes difficulty levels. It means that I get creative, based on how tired I am of a lesson.

Yesterday at Ochidani a highlight was playing "erase a man" (instead of hangman, suicide is a touchy subject here so I thought I'd leave that alone). After teaching them the new vocabulary, I would draw a person on the black board along with the blanks for a word. There are a few tricks-- there are many 3 letter words, and to keep it interesting I usually have the first few guesses be wrong. The last word I did was monkey, and I made my stick person a little girl. Sure enough, things started going well but then there was a conspiracy to have the little girl die. A kid guessed "z!" when "monk" was already up. In the end it was just a skirt and an arm left. tear :(

I haven't had any terrible experiences, well except for when I asked a girl "What's this" holding up a picture of a monkey, and she started crying! I felt like a monster but the homeroom teacher kept coaxing her along to say it when I would have left it alone. (She eventually got it and stopped crying, but the next time I asked her I let her pick the animal) But aside from that I usually have fun. I haven't had any serious trouble kids, and my fear of "kancho" (See kancho.org for an explanation) has so far proven unfounded. The kids tend to energize me and there is always a cute face smiling at me (sometimes in sheer confusion but I take what I can get).

I also get school lunches, but I'll save that for another time when I haven't been so long winded already.