Students?!

I just found out today that my bouncy, energetic, dedicated student, Jun Okada from Screen English is...

AN OLYMPIC SOCCER PLAYER.

One of my favourite students, was a jerk, stuck up, and never listened to anyone's advice. Then he went to the Olympics...

...and came back a changed man! He realized that he wasn't the best at everything for one...but he realized that he COULD turn himself into a good student. Hasn't played soccer ever again, dispite being capable of probably beating our entire (excellent) team by himself. Small, not in the BEST shape, and with a forward head, I never expected it. He's quiet, non-agressive, and faithful. He studies hard, and even goes out of his way to learn more English. He's changed from putting most of what he has into soccer to dropping soccer ENTIRELY for school. That's big in a culture like this! He decided that although he could be a pro soccer player for now...he might be better off having something he can do afterwards, rather than join FIFA or something. Amazing. What an inspiring student though! I've got to give an Olympic performance for that class now more than ever!

The Little Things: Motorcycles

Japanese streets are narrow, long, and have tight intersections in residential areas almost everywhere. Turning around takes a long time.

The Japanese postal service not only has to make it's regular rounds, it also has to make delieveries for packages, such as the ones my AWESOME Grandmas have sent me. So you can't use a big postal-truck. You can't even really use a big postal car, hardly. To make the most efficient route in these complexes cut into ever nook and cranny of the mountainside you need something smaller if you want to be efficient.

Motorcycles. I don't like motorcycles. They are dangerous. However, for the postal service, 50cc and 100cc
engines can cut gas costs down to less than 1/3. That adds up! And in the end, service is provided faster, and cheaper, allowing the system to set their rates lower for everybody else. They don't really have set routes even. It is up to the driver to do what they think is most efficient. And they do. I've seen package deliveries in one neighborhood turn around after going a short ways up a street, go along the best route to get where they are going. If they see some traffic in one place, they just take a different route if they need to. And here, where it hardly ever seems to freeze over, that works. And it works great. Now, if we could get the US to adopt some gas-saving techniques...any word yet if the postal service is going to adopt any hybrid or full-time electrics any time soon? This could be of serious help!

A Translation and A Reflection

Today I had something...unexpected happen. As I was waiting for my last 6 or so guys to come in so I could start my class, the girls (the ones that have been gossiping loudly enough about how cute and pretty I am in class after nearly every attempt to get them to work via pep-talk and attempting to be disgustingly cute) found that I was teaching a class directly across from theirs! Our doorways are precisely aligned, and I had nowhere to escape to, as the front of the classroom was right next to the door in plain sight of the door to the other classroom. So, rather than enter their classroom and sit down, they shouted out to all the other girls in the room and loud enough that anyone in the hallway could hear, (and including all of my own students) the following (translated):

Student 1: Ohmygod! It's the really cute English teacher! Everybody, come over here, quick!

*female students flood the doorway, peeking over eachother to see a glimpse*

Students, speaking over eachother: It's Adan! Hi Adan! Hi Adaam! He's so cute! Yeah, He sure is *starting to wave at me*

A few girls simultaneously, intending collective cuteness: Hi Adan~!

Speaking over eachother again: He's like, such a cute teacher! Wow, he's your teacher! I want him to be my teacher! (*Adam's note: this further shows evidence that students care more about the "entertainment" value of of a teacher over skills*)

*this goes on for some embarassing length of time time, girls filtering in and around the doorway, dropping off their bags to return and talk about how cute I am or attempt to state in the absolute clearest of Japanese to me that I am cute, even going so far as trying to making eye contact with me.*

Then, hilariously, another girl appears: One from the English Halloween Party for Kids and from the Kyoto trip! She took one glance at my face and darted back into the classroom. (I only saw it out of the corner of my eye at this point, being that I had turned so as to discourage the students from further disrupting their own class, my class, and any in ear-shot in the long, accoustically projecting concrete hallways.)

She knew that if she was caught peeking that people would then be able to infer her dating status, or that if they happened to know that she was dating anyone or not, they might accuse her of looking for another man in the meantime. I really don't know or care which it is myself, but...no one else caught her looking, I figure, so she should be okay. Really nice girl. I am actually a little disappointed for her sake that she was one of those peeking at me. Probably no guys around here that are good enough for her!


I'm starting to figure out this "married men getting lured off by Japanese women while abroad thing though." At first, I figured since Japanese women are generally never directly or individually "hitting on" anyone, anytime, anyplace, that it must be almost entirely a thing in the hands of the men visiting Japan themselves, that they are just leacherous. Well, it might not be ENTIRELY true, I am seeing now. I'm figuring out these "passive group tactics." In a group, they are alot more willing to say just about anything, as if to eachother. The volume that they do it at determines its purpose. When it is outloud, it clarifies what they want, who they like, etc, for everyone they want to see to see. Relationships, though, are kept quiet. So by attempting "mob-cuteness" as they did with the "Hi Adam!" They sort of put themselves out there, waiting for the first reply to any of them. They say all kinds of things, they just don't make the first move, except perhaps in rare cases. Basically, making a move for these girls consitutes intense flattery, advertising for you to their friends, and making it known that they are willing.

I know already that the first taker then from that point gets mobbed and either thrown out to the wolves selflessly by the probably jealous members, believe-it-or-not (in that case it would be me), or, they grab the girl and haul her off to see what they can do about setting up the next stage of the situation as best as they can (in this case, if that were to happen, they'd probably touch up her makeup and hair in the middle of class, busting out the mirrors and makeup and hair irons and all this stuff I see them use in my early class every Monday on themselves when they don't feel like working, and would probably just ignore the teacher that is lecturing without any repercussions. Then, conveniently timing the end of class, they would try to arrange themselves in such a way as to look like they were not standing in the shared doorspace in our hallway chatting about nothing in particular for any particular reason, they part just enough that I could only get by by getting close to the right girl, or I'd have to pass through the group to find some kind of a note on me when I get to the other side, or lord-only-knows what.)

Japan is a collectivist culture. If I'm going to avoid this stuff, I have to realize that the power of the group shouldn't be underestimated, and that these girls aren't thinking about their history grades, they are thinking about husbands to be had, and adventures overseas on a free ride with the best guy they can find. Unfortunately, I fit all too many of the requirements they are looking for.

The jocks in highschool would die of shock if they saw these things happening to me now! This is all very flattering to me, but completely useless. Grading is set up in such a way that there is no way for me to possibly raise their grades based on how they gossip about me, so I know it is genuine enough. However, it is still completely useless to me except as an indication of whether or not I have something on my face. Then again, if I did, they'd try to find some adorable way of letting me know it...so nevermind!

As a final note, I could be completely wrong about my generalizations, but judging from my knowledge of the culture, this is exactly how things appear to be.

Students...

When I ask students questions about English in English in the class Oral English, a class composed of students that have all had at least 6 years of English classroom experience, you might expect that they would sometimes, occasionally answer in...English.


Sadly, very very sadly, this has not been the case very often in my classes. I usually have to ask every time I talk directly to an one student or small group of students woking together to speak English. It seems, that in most classrooms for English, talking about English, hearing about English, reading about English, etc...is done in Japanese. Why? Well...that's just how it is here with most still, unfortunately. A book I read about a teacher that came to a town of about the same size here in Japan 20 years ago had almost identical experiences. There was hardly a word of English past the "Goodu mo-nin. ahm fine sank you ando you?" Now, well...the students seem to have similar expectations. They are plenty happy to belt that old phrase out even today, 20 years later, regardless of who the student is, how motivated they are, and whether or not they even want to be in the room. They all seem pleased to utter it even.

It gets a little worse. Some students refuse to utter one word of English. They will turn to their buddy for a translation of what I am saying, even when they are all words that they COULD understand if they were trying. Some student are literally just too lazy to even try. A pack of boys will designate someone to interupt me or just start translating line by line what I am saying (which is of course easy, since I am using super-low level English, stuff that they all truly know and have learned and relearned for over half a decade, and which they were all tested on to get out of Jr. High and High School both. They simply refuse. When I ask them what the name of the class is, they even say it in the Japanese form, not the English form. I repeat it every time in the English form "Oral English" and they usually sit waiting like there is some kind of a punch line. There is no punchline. They are here to speaking English, listen to English, write down what they are saying and hearing from the other students presentations, and to just get in there and "do English" in any way we can get them to.

I've heard from my superiors that English department staff meetings are almost all essentially the same way. Even though almost every last person knows around as much English as they do Japanese, have giant vocabularies, and medium-to-very high level of speaking abilities, if any question is posed at the staff meeting in English (mostly only by foreigners) that the Japanese immediately start talking about it in Japanese. They won't say a word about it in English generally until the discussion is over. Even if the question presented is one ABOUT English. Everything is done in Japanese. Oh, and if all the people in the staff meeting are Japanese, they will not once use English in the entire departmental meeting, as I have been told, quite seriously by superior teacher.

I have problems figuring out how anyone learns any English at all since few ever seem to participate in the language besides a few very small English speaking clubs! I don't want that to be the reason why some of my students don't seem to understand me, and I still don't think it is the reason that they don't. But I know that participation in learning is not really...expected.

Well, on the lighter side, my classes seems to be falling in love with me, toppling at a rate of about 2-4 students per day. There are some good students with no motivation, and there are soem with a little motivation and almost no skills. They don't overlap often with my classes. But as I've mentioned, they basically put me in Screen English, and then 3 of the "problem-child" classes. Wish me luck! And yes, I'd like some cheese with all this whine. Thank goodness Grandma sent me cheez-its!


OH! I forgot! They gave me a new office. It's really long (deep) from door to window. I decided to take liberty with the extra desks and chairs...so now any students walking in and trying to use it as a study lounge against my will shall be faced with this intimidating structure, with me siloutted against the bright day and my lookout point across the mountainside in the "Chairman" seat of the tables: