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English festivals JET Middle School Murakami

Teaching

teacher meToday I ended my six-day week with an 80 minute lesson for my middle school’s annual culture festival. Over the past few weeks, I managed to overprepare while still squeezing in a good amount of procrastination. My goal for the lesson was to have students practice natural greetings. “I’m fine thank you” is perfect English, but it’s boring as hell and the students know it by rote, not by creative, situational choice. First, I taught simple greetings, like “yo, hey, howdy, what’s up, whassup, ‘sup, what’s happenin’, how’s it goin’, what’s goin’ on.” I made the students form a circle and pass some balls around to the right, each time saying one of the greetings, which I had magnetized to the board for their reference. Second, I taught answers to “How are you” besides “I’m fine, thank you.” “sleepy, awesome, great, OK, so-so, super, good” all topped the list. I also showed them which words could be intensified by “really.” I then made them toss one ball across the circle from person to person, after which the tosser and tossee would have a little conversation. They weren’t allowed to answer “I’m fine thank you.”

I was quite pleased with these activities. Once the students got the hang of it, the shy weren’t so shy, and the boisterous were actually participating earnestly. There were some fun greetings and answers, like “Howdy, what’s happenin’!” and “Really super awesome!” Next time I will get balls that are easier to catch. Some of the girls had a bit of trouble, often dodging the balls entirely. One boy, who I had seen earlier in the week eating his boogers, kept getting hit right in the head with the balls. Oh well, he was doing his best.

WASSUP

Third, I put the two greeting types together in a game of musical chairs. I had the students form two rows of chairs, facing each other, and then had them walk around each row of chairs while music played (The Format – One Shot, Two Shots). When the music stopped, they had to sit and have a conversation with the person across from them, incorporating both greetings.

Fourth, I handed the students a worksheet that pretaught about five vocabulary items and listed about eight questions that pertained to the next “cultural” activity: an episode of “The Office.” I showed them the pilot episode, because it introduces all the characters from a clean slate, and has a great scene where Michael, Dwight, and Jim do a “waaaaaassssssup” routine. I showed the first 9:52 of the episode and then reviewed the worksheet. They didn’t do very well, which worried me. But, for the last 15 minutes of the class, they chose to watch the rest of the episode rather than learn tongue-twisters.

The rest of the day consisted of a bento lunch box, and then driving to the Murakami “Fureai” Center. Fureai is a sort of diaphanous word that gets tossed around a lot. In the dictionary it is listed as “contact” but I sort of understand it to mean “community” or “meetup.” It’s basically a performing arts center. Once there, I sat and watched the concours. What? Confused? Oh, maybe the Japanese would make more sense: コンクール (konkuuru). Oh? Still don’t know what it means? Pull out your French dictionary. Concours is a French word, that, in Japanese means competition. In this case it refers to a musical competition. It’s one of those foreign words that the Japanese assume any foreigner knows. For this concours, all twelve classes of students – four from each grade – took to the stage and sang songs. One student from each class played piano accompaniment, and one conducted them, waving arms and all.

CONCOURS

I realized, sitting there, contemplating the day, the week, the spectacle before me, all the while trying not to fall asleep, what my goal here in Japan should be. My purpose is, more than anything else, to make students appreciate my culture and my language. In one year, a single student might have me in class for 10, maybe 15 hours. Think about it – 450 students at Itchu, about 35 students per class. I go there about 10 days a month. I teach at most four classes per day, 45 or 50 minutes each. Ok, that’s a lot of math that I don’t feel like doing, but you see the point. On top of that, my presence doesn’t change the teaching methodology in the classroom, not just because I am an assistant language teacher, but because the teaching methodology is more than a surface feature. It’s rooted in Japanese culture. Last night, I was reading an account of a German language class in the book “Context and Culture in Language Teaching.” It described the casual method of the teacher – sitting in a chair at the same level with the students, in a circle, and having a group conversation for 15 minutes before breaking students into groups. I could never do that here. Every class starts with students standing up, the class officially starting, students facing forward, etc.

Originally, I was worried that taking 30 minutes of an 80 minute class for an episode of The Office was not “serious” enough for a lesson plan. Looking back, I am glad I did it. Even though I could drill the students half to death and crack the whip, they wouldn’t be gaining anything. As long as I put on a good show and tanoshimaseru (make have fun) the students each class, I think will have done my job. This makes me feel a lot better about introducing games that I think are going to be fun, even if they have nothing to do with the grammar point or lesson that’s in the book or on the teaching plan.

I’m feeling pretty good about the effort I’ve put into my job. If I ever have doubts, I think about my first graders in elementary school, who are so earnest and fun and cute, and think I look like this:

Me

7 replies on “Teaching”

In that picture, you have a HUGE ass. It had to be said. I’m glad you got away with showing them American television, I always liked my teacher who showed us the Tick in middle school.

Oh, and nice touch with the scrabble tie, I bet a japaneese scrabble board is pretty large.

I take your act of showing your students The Office as an homage to Kiri and I. Right on. And why do you have 3 legs in that picture? Like one leg split into two legs and the other one you just have up so thatyou’re standing just on your double leg.

Anyway, it made me really happy to read that you are glad with the way you are teaching your students. I think they’ll appreciate it much more this way.

I can’t see you using “wassup” in a conversation seriously, so how can you teach japanese kids to use it? At least you’re introducing them to the Format and the earliest possible opportunity. Well played my friend.

LOL holland sensei! Your tie is soo, uh, erm, opposite of fashionista-like? You do look like a teacher. Eating plenty of good sushi lately?

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