Teachers matter

I didn't make any blog posts last week. I was entirely exhausted. The school I taught at last week was honestly horrible. Ok, maybe thats an exaggeration, but it did totally drain me and make me begin to regret taking this job.

Since I'm at a school only one week most of that time is taken up with self introductions for each class. Sometimes they want me to only do a 15 minute intro and sometimes they have me do a full 50 minute class. Somehow this school decided that it would make sense to have me do a 15 minute intro...3 times for each class period. The classes had nearly 50 students each so they split the classes up into three parts for English classes. Then they'd have me hop from one class to the next doing my 15 minute self intro nonstop. I did about 16 self intros for each of the first two days. It was exhausting.

On top of that the students were rowdy as hell. Half the students had their own full conversations the whole class or just walked around class messing with each other. And apparently this was perfectly OK with the teachers. I don't know if they thought I'd do some disciplining, which is NOT my job, or maybe they allow this to happen all the time. Either way, I ended up yelling my voice out every day just to talk over the rowdy students so the other entirely shy and quiet students, could hear. At one point I needed the teacher to translate some simple instructions- because this school's English level was basically absolute beginner, if anything- and the teacher just stood at the back of the class grinning like an idiot. I suspect it was because she didnt understand me herself...

And that leads me to my main point- the English ability and use by the teacher entirely determines the abilities of the students. This is just based on my own observations, but whenever the teacher speaks English well (enough) and, most importantly, uses mostly English in the classroom the students both understand more English and are more comfortable speaking it, or attempting to speak it. Even within the same school and the same grade, there is a vast difference between the class of a teacher that gives directions in English and one that speaks entirely in Japanese.

Anyways, back to last week. So the teachers allowed shinanigans and hardly spoke any English. I yelled out my voice and generally was talking to dead ears. I had a horrible time and I was so mentally exhausted that I just collapsed after work.

Luckily I had a three day weekend to recover. We basically stayed home all weekend, after spending a couple hours at the zoo on Saturday. Actually, we've been playing lots of Minecraft together, which has been super fun.

This week I'm working at my 6th and final school. This school has been a breath of fresh air! The students are polite and so fun! Annnd incredibly flattering. Sometimes when I'm sitting in the teachers room they swarm at the door and point and saw "kawaii" cuz they think I don't know what that means (cute). In two different classes the kids just wanted to stare into my eyes... because they are green instead of brown. I've been having a ton of fun in the classes so far. These last two days have renewed my interest in this job again.

K+K