Down with the 英語ノート！！

Teaching English in Japanese elementary schools has always been challenging. Most homeroom teachers don't speak much English, and would rather stand back and let the ALT teach the whole lesson. The least helpful ones grade papers during the lesson, use the time to leave the classroom or catch up on sleep in the back of the room (true story). This of course is not the picture the Ministry of Education wants to paint for the new ALTs who arrive every August. Instead, they give us all an outdated copy of "Team-Teaching Activites for Elementary School" which leads you to believe that you will always be the assistant, demonstrating the activities and modeling your flawless "native speaker" pronunciation.

This semester, my 6th in the Japanese school system, is the first time I have ever taught at a school where this sort of "team teaching" actually occurs in all of the classes. And, let's just say it's not as fun as it sounds. Sure, planning the whole lesson by myself and often providing most of the materials took some time, and yes, most days I would have appreciated more support from the classroom (appologies to the several enthusiastic and helpful teachers I have had the honor of working with. But I am afraid you are in the minority.) I blame a good part of blandness of this semester's classes on the evil 英語ノート:


This is not a textbook, at least not according to the Ministry of Education. Rather it's a "guide" for the 35 hours of English time 5th and 6th graders are required to have this school year. Well, it's a pretty crappy "guide." It's hard to see in this picture, but the open page is one of the first lessons, "Greetings from Around the World." Hmmm, OK, that sounds like a good warm up, what's next? WHAT?!? This theme is supposed to last for 45 minutes? For three full lessons? Spare me. Also, I was hired to teach English, I am afraid I can't help you with the pronounciations of "Hello" in Russian, Korean, Chinese, Mongol or Swahili.

Repetition is definitely essential to learning a new language, but having 5th and 6th graders repeat only the four answers to "How are you?" included in the book during two or three 45-minute English lessons is a really good way to have them hating English forever. I'm sure one 20 minute section on "How are you?" would set them up for life. When I taught this same lesson to 2nd graders, we did 8 different answers and they knew them all the next time I went back to teach. English is difficult, but these kids are much smarter than the Ministry of Education gives them credit for (just one frustrating aspect of Japanese education, catering lessons to the slowest students, so no one falls behind. The result: everyone is bored and doesn't want to participate, making them seem dumb when really they need more of a challenge.)

Today though, I had a really good time at elementary school. It was somewhat of an unusual day, instead of just me and the homeroom teacher in class, an English volunteer was also in the classroom. This particular English volunteer also teaches classes when I am not scheduled at the school. She is a master of lesson planning, and shares my dislike of the 英語ノート ("I don't know how to speak Russian!") Loosely following the lesson after "Greetings from Around the World" we practiced "How are you?" with a variety of skits, gesture games and chants. Don't tell the Ministry of Education, but we gave them seven answers to choose from! And guess what? They got it and appeared to have fun at the same time. I really think this particular English volunteer needs a promotion straight into the upper divisions of the Ministry of Education, or at the very least get paid for all the work she does for the elementary schools in her area. Exciting English lessons take a bit of time and effort, but are not impossible!

*****

Since I am on the subject of school, it seems like a good time to share some recent amusing anecdotes.

Following my self introduction in 3rd grade two weeks ago, children asked many questions about the pictures of Arizona animals I had put on the board. Sadly, since most of them were along the lines of "How many scorpions are in Arizona?" I wasn't able to give them very good answers.

Today was the first time I've had a budding geologist in the audience. He asked two questions, the first pertaining to some rock called the "desert rose" and the second being whether you could take rocks from the Grand Canyon. No, you can't. It's a National Park. He seemed very disappointed.

The rest of the week was at junior high. The new batch of 7th graders are pretty annoying. I know they are only 12 and were in elementary school just two months ago, but they should know better than to talk while the teacher is talking and forget their notebooks everyday. It's time to grow up a bit...the collared shirts and neck-ties of their uniforms seem to have had no effect.

In 8th grade, we played "Scattergories" or at least a simplified version of it. I would announce the topic, and each group would write their answer on a small white board. The same answer was worth zero points. They did fairly well in categories like "breakfast food" or "something you can see at school," but had a harder time with "famous places" (I didn't know a "bookstore" was a famous destination.) By far the most challenging was "boy's name." The teacher told them it had to be a foreign name, not a Japanese one. The following answers were good tries, but sadly got their creators no points: "black peat," "Iverson," and "Brown." Thanks to Tiger Woods, we had to allow "Tiger" and the teacher thought we should be generous with the spelling, so "Bil"s and "Danieru" got points. I hate to say this, but I think they need to watch more TV!

After school, I spent some time chatting with part of the basketball team. I think only 3 of the dozen or so boys are my height or taller. One of the 9th graders is shorter than most of the new 7th graders on the team. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in awkward, enthusiastic attempts at English communication. When I arrived in class recently, he greeted me with a "Hello honey!" and yesterday he was calling all of is friends "crazy faces" until one said he was a "playboy face." I am not really sure what that means, but it was enough to make the original taunter be quiet for a bit. Oh boys...