Why I Am Amazing
Things here seem to be winding up on a mostly really positive note. Last week, on Thursday at Shimo-Kitazawa, I was supposed to have a free period. But then the SD (school director) came up to me and said "This family has 2 kids they were considering bringing in for trial lessons, but they didn't return any of my phone calls, but now they're here!!! They just moved back in January from living in Australia for 3 years, and.......What should we do????!?!" ---How was I supposed to know???!? So I mentioned some kids' level placement tests that I believed to exist somewhere. The SD at that school changed recently, so she called someone to ask where to find the tests, and we got them, mostly just so I didn't have to walk into the classroom empty-handed and we could pretend we had some kind of procedure for cases like theirs. I carried a clipboard and a pen, so I think we fooled them. The tests were WAY too esay for those kids.
They were 7 and 13, and I ended up just chatting with each of them, asking them about their time in Australia, how they felt about moving back to Japan, and how they feel about their English. This was the most I've been able to communicate with any child in this country. The 13-year-old boy's English was amazing, he was using terms like "advanced technology" and stuff, and we talked for about 15 minutes before he made any mistakes. I asked him how confident he felt about his English, and he said "I used to feel confident about my English, but for the last 3 months or so-" and he hung his head- "I haven't felt...very confident." and he seemed so sad it hurt. I talked to his parents about what I thought of his English skills, and they were really happy - I felt kind of sad for the little sister, because they didn't seem at all interested in what I had to say about her English. But maybe it was because, as they said, their son had come crying to them the night before because he felt he was losing all his English. So I reassured them (and him) his English was still great.
Anyway, later after they had spoken with the SD, she told me they had been shopping around at different English schools, and had I been available to teach their kids, they would've signed up immediately, but because I was leaving, they were going to think about it. Too bad, but made me feel good! I better get a good reference after this......
Then this week, at the same school yesterday, I taught Luke (who was bad and kept trying to look up my skirt - BAD!), and then Takeshi. Takeshi's my half-Chinese 10-year-old private student who started about halfway through the year. He's been fun to teach - really inquisitive, and tries so hard to make jokes and ask questions and tell me things using English not specifically covered in our lessons, which is totally different from all the other kids I teach, let alone most of the adults.....We always have lots of fun.
So yesterday Takeshi was late, and he hadn't done his homework, AND he was tired, so given the limited time we had, it was hard to get through much, and he had trouble learning the new material because he was rushed and tired. So it definitely wasn't our best lesson together.
But after we finished and met his mom in the lobby, where the staff were explaining that next week is a holiday Thursday so there's only one lesson left this month, we discovered that this was or last lesson together!!! His family's going on a trip to China for the last week of March, so he can't come for the last lesson, but his mom didn't realize there was no class next week. So it slowly sank into everyone as the staff made futile efforts to reschedule a time when I could teach him again before this year's contract is up, and they explained that he could take his missed lesson with another teacher instead. Everyone kind of sat around stunned for a bit, then I started telling Takeshi what a great student he was because he always asked so many questions, and then the school staff members started to cry a little bit. (They're not used to any open displays like this in Japan - it really wasn't that much!) Takeshi got a little teary-eyed, and tried to bargain with the staff, and I said I'd come in on my day off to teach if headquarters would allow it. We sat around like this for a while, until I had 5 minutes till my FTLs started, and when his mom tried to get him to leave, Takeshi just wouldn't go. He kept staring at me with this facial expression full of English vocab he hadn't learned yet. He said he wanted to visit me in Canada but he forgot where I lived, so I wrote down my mom's address so he could write to me, but he said he wanted to talk to me on Instant Messenger too, so I wrote my hotmail address for him too. First time I've ever done that for one of my students, especially a kid student! Finally we really did have to part, but I think he didn't know what to do, he had no words to use and everyone was staring at us. People don't hug or shake hands here, they just bow until it feels close enough, so I held out my hand for a handshake, and when he took it I pulled him in and gave him an attack-hug, and then BOTH the staff members had to hide in the back room and cry. I would've too, but I had to run straight to my FTL student who was waiting for me, so I was OK, just sad. But after that lesson, I came out to find Takeshi and his mom there again! They'd brought me a present - a lamp shaped like a flower. And again, Takeshi said "Goodbye!" and "See you!!!" like 20 times while backing out the door, obviously not wanting to leave. Finally he said "I'll instant-message you!!" in kids' Japanese-English, and that seemed to allow him to leave OK. SO emotional!!! That totally makes up for all the kids' goodbyes last year that I expected to be emotional, that totally weren't at all on their part.
(Even after that, I had a FTL with a really shy high school student with 2 middle-aged businessmen who talked too much, but who I tried so hard to encourage and who stayed after class to talk to me and to ask my personal opinion on his English skills, and the best ways for him to study - which I guess sounds normal, but almost never happens - at least for me - here.)
And tomorrow, I have a few students who have been regular FTL students of mine at Jiyugaoka school about twice a Saturday for the past year (or in one of their cases, 2 years!) taking me out for dinner after work.
So, this week, I felt like a Superteacher. Really, people here are SO reluctant to express personal feelings like this, it means so much to me that these ones have.
...And that's my news! --Oh, also there's that I found my Ontario driver's license in my drawer, and I thought it was in my wallet last year when I lost it. Yay! I can maybe still drive when I get home!
AND today was White Day, the girls' Valentine's Day. Teppei bought me a robot watch to replace the one I lost, and last night at midnight (I guess I started that tradition last year on V's Day when I was going back to Ogikubo for the day but was at Teppei's the day and night before, so I gave him his present at midnight when V's Day started, and he's been doing the same thing since) he gave me a game I thought looked fun for our Nintedo Wii (it's a Japanese one, almost half the price of American systems here!), and assorted Baskin-Robbins ice cream (we didn't eat it yet, but apparently he's already claimed the chocolate), and some stuff from Lush. (Then he called me at work today to ask me "Can I use your sparkley bath bomb?") Sigh. But he said he most wanted to buy me a ring but didn't know which one to choose, so he's going to take me to get me the one I've had my eye on for months but haven't been able to justify buying. It's not that expensive, I've just been really feeling guilty spending money. --And all I wanted was for him to do the dishes and the laundry all by himself! (He didn't. )
...So that's my news. DONE!
They were 7 and 13, and I ended up just chatting with each of them, asking them about their time in Australia, how they felt about moving back to Japan, and how they feel about their English. This was the most I've been able to communicate with any child in this country. The 13-year-old boy's English was amazing, he was using terms like "advanced technology" and stuff, and we talked for about 15 minutes before he made any mistakes. I asked him how confident he felt about his English, and he said "I used to feel confident about my English, but for the last 3 months or so-" and he hung his head- "I haven't felt...very confident." and he seemed so sad it hurt. I talked to his parents about what I thought of his English skills, and they were really happy - I felt kind of sad for the little sister, because they didn't seem at all interested in what I had to say about her English. But maybe it was because, as they said, their son had come crying to them the night before because he felt he was losing all his English. So I reassured them (and him) his English was still great.
Anyway, later after they had spoken with the SD, she told me they had been shopping around at different English schools, and had I been available to teach their kids, they would've signed up immediately, but because I was leaving, they were going to think about it. Too bad, but made me feel good! I better get a good reference after this......
Then this week, at the same school yesterday, I taught Luke (who was bad and kept trying to look up my skirt - BAD!), and then Takeshi. Takeshi's my half-Chinese 10-year-old private student who started about halfway through the year. He's been fun to teach - really inquisitive, and tries so hard to make jokes and ask questions and tell me things using English not specifically covered in our lessons, which is totally different from all the other kids I teach, let alone most of the adults.....We always have lots of fun.
So yesterday Takeshi was late, and he hadn't done his homework, AND he was tired, so given the limited time we had, it was hard to get through much, and he had trouble learning the new material because he was rushed and tired. So it definitely wasn't our best lesson together.
But after we finished and met his mom in the lobby, where the staff were explaining that next week is a holiday Thursday so there's only one lesson left this month, we discovered that this was or last lesson together!!! His family's going on a trip to China for the last week of March, so he can't come for the last lesson, but his mom didn't realize there was no class next week. So it slowly sank into everyone as the staff made futile efforts to reschedule a time when I could teach him again before this year's contract is up, and they explained that he could take his missed lesson with another teacher instead. Everyone kind of sat around stunned for a bit, then I started telling Takeshi what a great student he was because he always asked so many questions, and then the school staff members started to cry a little bit. (They're not used to any open displays like this in Japan - it really wasn't that much!) Takeshi got a little teary-eyed, and tried to bargain with the staff, and I said I'd come in on my day off to teach if headquarters would allow it. We sat around like this for a while, until I had 5 minutes till my FTLs started, and when his mom tried to get him to leave, Takeshi just wouldn't go. He kept staring at me with this facial expression full of English vocab he hadn't learned yet. He said he wanted to visit me in Canada but he forgot where I lived, so I wrote down my mom's address so he could write to me, but he said he wanted to talk to me on Instant Messenger too, so I wrote my hotmail address for him too. First time I've ever done that for one of my students, especially a kid student! Finally we really did have to part, but I think he didn't know what to do, he had no words to use and everyone was staring at us. People don't hug or shake hands here, they just bow until it feels close enough, so I held out my hand for a handshake, and when he took it I pulled him in and gave him an attack-hug, and then BOTH the staff members had to hide in the back room and cry. I would've too, but I had to run straight to my FTL student who was waiting for me, so I was OK, just sad. But after that lesson, I came out to find Takeshi and his mom there again! They'd brought me a present - a lamp shaped like a flower. And again, Takeshi said "Goodbye!" and "See you!!!" like 20 times while backing out the door, obviously not wanting to leave. Finally he said "I'll instant-message you!!" in kids' Japanese-English, and that seemed to allow him to leave OK. SO emotional!!! That totally makes up for all the kids' goodbyes last year that I expected to be emotional, that totally weren't at all on their part.
(Even after that, I had a FTL with a really shy high school student with 2 middle-aged businessmen who talked too much, but who I tried so hard to encourage and who stayed after class to talk to me and to ask my personal opinion on his English skills, and the best ways for him to study - which I guess sounds normal, but almost never happens - at least for me - here.)
And tomorrow, I have a few students who have been regular FTL students of mine at Jiyugaoka school about twice a Saturday for the past year (or in one of their cases, 2 years!) taking me out for dinner after work.
So, this week, I felt like a Superteacher. Really, people here are SO reluctant to express personal feelings like this, it means so much to me that these ones have.
...And that's my news! --Oh, also there's that I found my Ontario driver's license in my drawer, and I thought it was in my wallet last year when I lost it. Yay! I can maybe still drive when I get home!
AND today was White Day, the girls' Valentine's Day. Teppei bought me a robot watch to replace the one I lost, and last night at midnight (I guess I started that tradition last year on V's Day when I was going back to Ogikubo for the day but was at Teppei's the day and night before, so I gave him his present at midnight when V's Day started, and he's been doing the same thing since) he gave me a game I thought looked fun for our Nintedo Wii (it's a Japanese one, almost half the price of American systems here!), and assorted Baskin-Robbins ice cream (we didn't eat it yet, but apparently he's already claimed the chocolate), and some stuff from Lush. (Then he called me at work today to ask me "Can I use your sparkley bath bomb?") Sigh. But he said he most wanted to buy me a ring but didn't know which one to choose, so he's going to take me to get me the one I've had my eye on for months but haven't been able to justify buying. It's not that expensive, I've just been really feeling guilty spending money. --And all I wanted was for him to do the dishes and the laundry all by himself! (He didn't. )
...So that's my news. DONE!