My first lesson was first period. Nothing like throwing me right in the deep end! As expected, the students didn`t really talk, even to each other when they were supposed to be working in groups.... There was noise a few times, though. It`s progress. I was asked for the first time if I was married. I expect that by the end of this month I will have wanted to start a drinking game with variations of this question ["Do you have a husband?", "Do you have a boyfriend?"... They never actually say, "Are you single?"], as it`s right up there with your blood type in "popular questions Japanese students ask."
I`m glad I already had the materials printed for my first class, because the big printer I use as my default broke, so I had to print things out for my other two classes today on the tiny, awful printer that puts creases in pages and sometimes skips printing letters. Eventually I taught myself to use the photocopier (trial and error, folks, trial and error) so I only had to print out one bad copy, fix it up with my pen, and then make enough semi-decent copies for the rest of the classes, so I`m set until Thursday. Which I keep thinking of as Wednesday. Monday wasn`t an official holiday here, but since I had to be at school on Saturday for bunkasai I had Monday off, so now Monday classes are running on Tuesday, where normally I would be at the special needs school today. Mostly my plan is just to get up on days when my alarm goes off, and sleep in on the days that it doesn`t go off, and go to class when the JTEs approach me to walk together, because otherwise I`m going to give myself a migrane trying to figure out what day of the week it actually is.
Anyway. I had two free periods to do all of this prep work, which actually took maybe one period (technology is hard when it`s not in English). My fourth period class was less scary, since I already had one class under my belt, but it`s still thirty-odd pairs of unfamiliar eyes staring at you and only understanding about 20% of what you`re saying. The second class was about the same level of non-noise, though. You ask a group a question, and you get the, "You say it!" "No, you say it!" ...And then no one says anything until you pretty much single someone out and prompt them to say it.
Fifth period was a "sports class". I`m still not entirely certain what this means, but from what I understand it`s a specialty class for kids who want to go into professional sports or PE teaching. I think. These kids were the exact opposite of the previous classes. Instead of getting them to speak, the problem was getting them to shut up! They`re really enthusiastic, though, and they do try, so I think we`ll have fun. I was actually able to play a real game of my "Jeopardy" self-intro instead of just going team by team! Got some interesting questions that they wanted to ask me, too. Like, "Are the UV rays in Japan strong?" (Uh... I haven`t really been sunburnt since I got here and I don`t own sunscreen, so... No?) or "What Japanese guys do you think are cool?" (Cool basically = super-hot-and-dreamy here. The only Japanese celebrity I can name off the top of my head is Gackt, in the vague sense of "I`m pretty sure I`m picturing the right guy when I say that," and he looks like a girl, so I really couldn`t answer; I told the kid I`d watch Japanese movies and get back to him) or "What is your favourite Japanese word?" (I said "Shika!" [deer] with my hands on my head like antlers, and the kids thought that was hilarious).
I`ve heard a lot of people throughout our orientations say, "Don`t let your students know you speak Japanese!" I disagree with this idea, and have taken a different approach. I think back to taking French in high school. Our lessons were in French (unless we really didn`t get it, and then we got an explanation in English before switching back to French), we spoke in French in class, but we didn`t speak French with the French teacher in the halls! So I`ve adopted the same kind of thing. In class, yes, I`m all-English because that`s what I`m contracted to be, and I`ll say "hello" and "good morning" in the halls in English because I know that they know those words, regardless of their level. But otherwise it`s a mish-mash of Japanese and English. Using my (admittedly limited) Japanese sometimes outside of the classroom makes me more approachable to students. If they know that my Japanese is level with their English, it makes them more comfortable around me, and more likely to even just say "Hello!" to me first. Like a conversation that happened recently (maybe at bunkasai? I think it was with the anime club...):
Student: (Very haltingly) Do you enjoy live in Japan?
Me: Do I like living in Japan?
Student: Ah! Yes! Living in Japan!
Me: Yes. It`s very hot. Totemo atsui desu. ("It`s very hot" in Japanese.)
It just creates a more relaxed atmosphere when you`re not this intimidating, impenetrable wall of things they don`t understand all the time.
Fun Fact: Anteaters adopt this pose to intimidate their enemies.
My habit especially helps in the case of second year students. I don`t have class with them, so if they know that they can still come talk to me and be understood even if they don`t know every English word and have to say a couple things in Japanese to get their point across, I think it will generate a lot more interest in English as a whole. (And I never just answer a question, either. If they need a word or some correction, I always give that before answering, like I did with the "living in Japan" conversation.)
Well, that`s about it for now, I guess. No one cried, no one died; I'm calling today a success. I still can`t believe how often I`m updating this... You`ll probably get less updates when everything becomes more routine, but right now everything is new, so you`re getting a barrage of "foreigner life in Japan." Lucky you.
PS. It`s raining again. This seems to be the default weather setting in Tsu. I`m not enjoying it. It makes it difficult to go sight-seeing.
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