okada sensei
i wish i had better writing skills, only so that i can aptly describe my japanese teacher. the description i can write doesn't do her justice. shes a hoot. a character out of a book. i've never encountered someone so odd and intimidating. she likes arabic music and islamic prayer calls. she's dramatic and is obsessed with beautiful, grammatically correct japanese. she'll read some sentence and say it's gross. not because it's describing poop, but because some noun or adjective is oddly placed. i'm convinced she has a dance/drama background. she stands in third position and wears dancer shoes. she strikes fear and awe in all the students and i'm pretty sure the entire staff of cjs.
class with her yesterday was slow torture. and upon further reflection, more like a drama class than language instruction. one by one we had to get up in front of the class and present mini speeches memorized from what she already partially extracted from an nhk special on starving children in sierra leonne. after we all failed the first round, we were put into small groups to practice our pathetic speeches. next, she come around to each group and made each person say their speech to her face. not enough emotion was her main complaint. we were not doing enough to convey the seriousness of the situation in sierra leonne! 10 year civil war, that's bad! make me understand that! stress the 10! little children starving--more emotion!! so as she stares into my face from about 4 feet away, i act out my speech, contorting my face, elongating phrases, adding dramatic pauses. this would be unthinkably embarrassing anywhere else. but we have no choice. okada sensei says we must do it.
class with her yesterday was slow torture. and upon further reflection, more like a drama class than language instruction. one by one we had to get up in front of the class and present mini speeches memorized from what she already partially extracted from an nhk special on starving children in sierra leonne. after we all failed the first round, we were put into small groups to practice our pathetic speeches. next, she come around to each group and made each person say their speech to her face. not enough emotion was her main complaint. we were not doing enough to convey the seriousness of the situation in sierra leonne! 10 year civil war, that's bad! make me understand that! stress the 10! little children starving--more emotion!! so as she stares into my face from about 4 feet away, i act out my speech, contorting my face, elongating phrases, adding dramatic pauses. this would be unthinkably embarrassing anywhere else. but we have no choice. okada sensei says we must do it.