Demo Class
I had a demonstration class today with the 1st grade. This is called ‘kenkyuu jugyou’ and is an opportunity for other teachers at the school and also members of the Board of Education and PTA, to see how you teach. Depending on the school, many JETs will be asked to give a demonstration class once a year, with their JTE. It is not specific to English, or the JET programme - a kenkyuu jugyou is something that teachers of all subjects will have to do. After the kenkyuu jugyou there is a long meeting where the lesson is dissected and the other teachers give their opinions and time-nurtured words of wisdom.
Or at least, that is what is supposed to happen.
Before I get into that though, I must give a special mention to my kids. Today they really did us proud. There are about a million things that can go wrong at a time like this since lets face it, Japanese kids in a classroom are volatile little time-bombs of bipolarity and can easily turn a flawlessly planned and meticulously prepared class into a melee of blood, spittle, and chants of ‘GETS’. That said though, I really have to hand it to my 1st grade kids. They are an awesome bunch of kids - enthusiastic, intelligent and really fun to teach. Me and my JTE had planned a pretty goddamn fantastic lesson and I spent most of yesterday creating worksheets, amusing Monty-Python style collage photographs with me and my JTE’s face crudely glued in place of someone else’s (grammar props) and creating other materials for what was to be the MOTHER of all communication activities. And the kids loved it. They were absolute darlings. And it is not often that I, as an ALT, get to say these words.
And so it comes to the meeting with the other teachers at the end of the day, where I was prepared to be criticised and/or nourished with wise nuggets of advice from my superiors. But none of that happened. Well, not at first.
“Any questions for Jon and Miss Masui?” the chairlady of the meeting said.
“- “
Was pretty much the overall response for the first, ooh, 20 fricking minutes. This led me to a startling discovery - that when it comes to giving an opinion, Japanese adults are just as crap as Japanese kids. I had always assumed that the problem with Japanese kids giving opinions in class (trust me, this is a huge no no - kids would rather shove pencils up their bums than give their ‘own’ opinion on any given subject in front of their peers) was based on adolescent shyness, which is fair enough. But it seemed today that the problem extends faaaar into adulthood. Ok, so “it’s a cultural thing, you cock” I hear you mumble through pringle-crumbed lips, but really you would expect adults who had been working together for years to be able to do better than this. It’s not as if there was nothing to say - after the probationary stagnant 20 minute period, things started to flow nicely and teachers were literally reading reams of notes they had made. Getting them started though, that was the tough part - and ironically, much tougher than the 1st graders.
Anyway, many of the comments were really positive, which was great. It was good to get some ‘recognition’ finally. Perhaps recognition is the wrong word, but many JETs complain that they get next to no feedback on their job performance, causing many of us to degenerate into dribbling, unmotivated shadows of our former selves. So to hear what the other teachers thought of the class was great. Many people commented on the dynamic between my JTE and I, which is frankly, rather excellent. Me and this JTE have worked together for a year now and I think we know and can read each other pretty well, which helps the classes immensely.
Some of the more amusing comments were along the lines of:
“Jon moves around a lot in class. I think this is good for the children”
“Jon and Masui sensei sound ‘cool’ when they speak English”
“Before today, I thought JETs were unnecessary. Now I understand why they are important”
That last one was said by the principal, I swear to God. At first I thought “wow, that’s great”, but then it dawned on me that during the last 5 months he has been principal here (he is a new principal) every time he looked at me he must have been thinking “yeah you sip your green tea and fricking choke on it you big fat gaijin waste of space and my tax money”.
Apologies if this entry seems like I’m just sounding off, but, well, I am. This is probably the first time in a year that I have had the chance to get some feedback from people who aren’t directly connected to my immediate role in the school. Basically I’m just really chuffed.
Plus I thought this entry would be better received than just a huge picture of me naked except for a green party hat, waggling my penis triumphantly towards the camera whilst pumping my arm in the air in a celebratory manner.
Oh by the way, I’m going to Korea this weekend. With a bit of luck, I’ll be back next week to tell you all what dog tastes like.
