School: My Job

Whew. Onto school. I don't think I've really spent any time documenting what it is I do here. Besides all the craziness that goes on outside of school time... There is a LOT of craziness that goes on IN-side. Let's start with a little overview of my job. I am an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at Misato Junior High School. There are five full-time, fully trained ("real") English teachers here. My friend Ms. Takemura left at the end of last term (there are three, we are now in the third of three, the school year ends in March) on maternity leave and was replaced by Mr. Ishizone. Mr. Ishizone is worthy of an entire journal just on him... but I won't subject you to that. For now, I'll just say he is totally old school, uses only Japanese to teach and would probably prefer me to stop trying to teach his classes. We are working together on trying to work together. Fortunately he has a terrific sense of humor and is only here through March. ;) So. Usually it is my mission to create a lesson plan for the classes I share with the other teachers. There are three grades (refered to as first, second, and third.. the Japanese equivilants of American grades 7 through 9) and within each grade there are 5 classes. Each class consists of somewhere between 36 and 40 students who stay together for the entire day. Instead of the kids going to teachers' classrooms as in the States, here the teachers go to the students' classrooms. Students do go to the Art room, the Music room, certain Science rooms, P.E. and sometimes mix up for different Math classes. But mostly, they have class in the same room with the same kids in the same desks. Sometimes, these groups don't even change between school years, they just move to a higher floor in the building.

Ok. So, I teach in each of these classrooms one time in two weeks. There are 15 (you could have done that math, I suppose!) plus I have 3 "special" classes. More on them later, I am sure. Each class has one English teacher who teaches them 4 times a week (so 8 times in 2 weeks, again pretty simple). Then one of those 8 classes, the teacher "team teaches"... with (you guessed it!) me. Now "team teaching" is a pretty lame term because I haven't heard of too many people actually doing this. I am one of the luckier JETs on one extreme end: My teachers allow me to plan the entire class and I pretty much lead the entire 50 minutes (this is where Mr. Ishizone and I am struggling). Other JETs are asked to sit and watch or just help model the pronounciation of target vocab so the class can repeat them (this is what Mr. Ishizone would prefer me to do.... AGH). I am REALLY challenged by lesson planning but am REALLY starting to enjoy doing it and enjoy being mildly successful (i.e. my classes have moved from 100% entertainment to something bordering on teaching. at least I think so. Probably where Mr. Ishizone has a right to be concerned).

So last week, in first grade, we were practicing asking "where?" and "whose ____ is this?" and also using "she/hers/he/his/mine" etc. (Don't get me started on the horrid English textbooks and language learning system in this country. At least not yet.) I started class as I usually do, the teacher and I split a deck of cards with simple questions on them (ex. What time do you get up? Do you play soccer?). The students stand up and may sit when they have answered a question with a full answer. This term, we've also asked them to respond with "How about you?" so that the exchange more closely resembles a real dialogue. Still a bit akward. Then, I had three big drawings/posters, etc. of Santa, Harry Potter, and Shinjo (Japanese baseball player) and drew myself on the board. I had a bag full of objects and when I asked the class "Whose hat/ball/pen/present is this?" they had to pass the question relay style to the last person in the row who then answered. Then they passed the answer back to me and scored a point. Loads of fun. Next, I had them put their heads down on their desk. They thought this was hilarious; "We can go to sleep?" While they were "sleeping" I walked around stealing their stuff. muhahahahaha!! I would then ask "Whose is this?" The owner had to yell "It's mine" and the class had to yell "It's his/hers!" loud enough or I wouldn't give the object back. Wrapped up class with a tongue twister or a practice handout according to time. Pretty typical first year class. I can be as silly as possible, a la Mori No Ike. It is a HECK of a lot of fun.

Second grade: to practice using "There is/are" and prepositions, I made a worksheet that was an empty room. I told the class it was MY room and to draw objects in the room according to my description ("There is a calendar on the wall, telephone on the bookshelf, etc."). Then I checked by asking them ("Is there a _____ in my room?"). Then I handed them a worksheet with 2 rooms on it. The top room was theirs and they had 5 min. to fill it with 5-6 items. Then they paired up and drew their partner's room in the bottom listening to an English description. In the middle, they had to write the description out in English. This was pretty fun and I was reminded of the need to give the kids a time limit on activities. If I don't cut them off.. they never get started. Procrastinator teaching the procrastinators- yikes!!

Third grade can be REALLY tough. These kids are NOT as in to silly as the first graders, that was clear on day one. They also have senioritis... BIG TIME. I usually teach with 2 other teachers because in all their other English classes, they are split into ability levels. This makes teaching them together a potential for nightmare. Fortunately even in the most anti-class classes, there are some really terrific kids. Some of the third graders are just totally neat. They make me grin even after a whopper of a class. Anyway, last week's class: we started by reviewing a doctor/patient conversation out of the text ("Hi. What's wrong?" "I have a headache" and so on). Then, using a sheet I drew up, the kids had 10 minutes to practice MY version of the dialogue (added useful vocabulary and phrases like "My ___ hurts.") They got points for each person they spoke with (1 point for same gender, 2pts for guy/girl, 3 pts for practicing with a teacher). For the second half of class, we made 8 groups (I am still trying to get the classes used to counting off to make groups.. who'd have thunk?) and each group got the same copy of a version of the Paul Bunyan story. Then they each got a question from one of the teacher. They had to answer the question, tell it in a complete sentence to a teacher then get a new one. This sounds lame, but was great excercise in skimming for keywords and meaning for kids who have been taught to read by translating every word literally. Doubt any of them learned much about Paul Bunyan... but the stories in the text are much weirder so it probably didn't phase them! I may go back to tall tales at a different time.

I had a great week last week which basically means I got through all my lessons and the kids were involved throughout the class. I had fun and they had fun, which is a bonus. During my non-class hours (which are more frequent than class hours) I read student journals and write messages back, work on my lessons and materials for the next 2 week cycle, tweak/write notes about the current ones, work on my monthly English bulletin board, create the weekly English puzzle that hangs from my bulletin board (usually a crossword/word search or something similar with seasonally appropriate word that the kids earn lotto tickets for completing and then can enter themselves in the montly lotto for handmade cookies.. handmade by me, of course!) read e-mail, read the news, surf the internet, and study Japanese. It isn't crazy busy but it has been enough to keep me happy, interested and challenged so far this year. I also have plenty of free time to spend enjoying other stuff: traveling, hiking, reading, skiing, running and studying among others. And yes, in case you haven't heard.. I am staying another year.