I use this blog more as a virtual scratching post more than anything. I do apologise about that but, well, it is my blog.
Went to the Shaken place yesterday to see what was going on. They told me that the procedure would cost 90000 yen (about £450) which is oddly enough what I’d hoped for. Got to go back on Monday to actually get it done and find out what needs repairing. Apparently the repairs they might suggest are just that; suggestions. Apart from a few serious problems it’s entirely up to you whether you repair them or not.
Another fun meeting with one of my JTEs a few minutes ago. Yesterday we decided to embark on a new adventure. We decided that, for once, we would let the students think. I usually take my lesson plan topics for Oral Communication lessons from the text book the other teachers use when I am not in a lesson. Now these things are awful, terrible books that not only do not teach English but sometimes get it plain wrong. An example, from the current book:
“I have a dream of becoming a dentist.”
While grammatically correct (sort of) I would never, ever utter that phrase in conversation. “I dream of becoming a dentist” maybe, but that still sounds rather disjointed.
Now, the first few chapters of this book were easy to use as the themes of lesson plans; Holiday, directions, the telephone. But the 4th chapter is titled “Would you like an extra blanket?” and is about…nothing. Well no, it’s actually about how to ask for an extra blanket and some more nuts on an airplane. So, I went to my teacher yesterday (about 10 minutes after I was supposed to be at my second school as the said teacher had disappeared for 40 minutes) and told her I couldn’t make a plan out of this chapter. So we decided to do more on the previous topic, the telephone. As far as I was concerned we had decided to, for once, let the kids actually use the English they’d “learnt” and spend the lesson constructing their own telephone conversations from the Key Phrases I’d given them the lesson before.
Today, she saunters up to me and asks to see the worksheet I’ve prepared for today’s lesson. “I’m sorry?” I stutter. “For the lesson today, did you make a worksheet?” I remind her that only the day before we had decided to let the kids work in groups this lesson, we had decided to let them use their brains. “But I thought you were going to make a worksheet for that?” I patiently explain that the Key Phrases are on the worksheet I did last week that the kids still have, and that we agreed yesterday that we’d suggest a few topics for the conversations on the board. Of course, this totally confuses her. “Well, their English level is very low…” Ignoring the fact that she’s now completely forgotten about yesterday’s conversation, I tell her that this sort of thing is what I used to do in French lessons, and my level of French was never much higher than “low”. Still she looks nonplussed.
Then she moves on to the two English 1 classes I have today. Why I have two is still beyond me, my original lesson plan made at the start of this term clearly states that on Wednesdays I should only have one. Never mind. She asks me if I have any ideas. No clarification on what topic or subject I should broach, just “Do you have any ideas?” No, no I don’t. I have never planned these lessons, that’s been left up to the JTEs. They haven’t been doing a very good job lately, most lessons end up in me playing cards with the students. I’m not entirely sure why the JTEs can’t organise these lessons considering all the lessons they do without me are taken straight from the terrible textbooks.
Then she asks if I have any activities involving the past tense. Oh yes, just let me find them… Grammar points are almost impossible to make into any activity that isn’t excruciatingly dull and luckily they usually leave the grammar stuff to the lessons not involving me. Not this time. She says we’ll discuss it in the period before the lesson, you know, when I’ve got all of 45 minutes to put something together.
I despair I really do. The Japanese education system, at least regarding English, has possibly the worst attitude towards the students that I’ve ever come across. They’re treated like unthinking drones incapable of retaining even the most basic knowledge. Any creative thought or input is actively discouraged. Learn this. Memorise this. Say this, then. “I’m fine, and you?” But to be honest, that’s exactly what my students are like. Whether this is due to the students themselves or the way they are treated from the very beginnings of their education is a distinction crying out for research.
Well, I just had the “thinking” class and amazingly enough it went very well. The students actually thought about what they were doing in their groups (well, most of them) and the conversations they came up with were actually pretty good. The atmosphere was really good too.
I suppose that answers the nature or nurture question I had before…
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