2001-09-17 - 10:34 p.m.
Thought I’d take a break from the situation in the US and tell you a little about Japan -- not because I’m feeling particularly present here right now but because you probably need something else to think about besides what you’re seeing on the news everyday (and it probably wouldn’t hurt me either).
Thankfully, I am almost done doing my round of self-introductions at the junior high -- just one more class tomorrow and I will have met every one of the students in the school (around 600). For the last two weeks, I’ve had to do the same 45-minute-long lesson about myself to each new class I visit -- and there are seventeen classes in the school. The difference between the students in terms of age is really stark. The 1st year students (7th graders) are 12, and are a friendly and energetic bunch. I never have to ask twice for volunteers to hold my posters and they seem to find the language itself really exciting. They practically repeat every word I say as I say it, as if they cannot wait to try to make this new sound come out of their own mouths. The 3rd year students (9th graders) have a similar enthusiasm, but it stems from wanting to use the English they’ve learned. They think hard and talk among themselves to form questions for me, and are generally cooperative. As you might expect from 14 year-olds, sometimes their attempts to prove their coolness to their peers are obnoxious, but in general they’re a really nice bunch. The 2nd year students (8th graders) are a real challenge. They sleep or talk through my class, sit there and stare at me when I ask for volunteers, and carelessly drop or toss around my posters and props once I drag them up there. It’s pulling teeth to even get them to participate in the GAME part of the lesson. The Japanese response to “bad” students is much different than it is in the US. The teacher doesn’t start the class until all students are sitting at their desks. That means if a student is in the restroom, the teacher will stand silently at the front of the room for five minutes until he or she returns. For the most part, teachers don’t put much effort in rousing sleeping students. I think the attitude is generally that it’s the student’s loss. Same goes for talking students or students reading comic books. I guess that it encourages students to be responsible for their own education.
Now that the self introductions are drawing to close, the easy work begins. I will “teach” between 3 and 5 classes a day (about 18 a week). What this involves is the following: the teacher lets me know ahead of time (usually as we’re walking to class) what the lesson will be, and throughout the lesson I’m called upon to read sentences out loud and have students repeat them, or to explain certain things. Today, for example, the 3rd year students were reading a very abbreviated history of rock and roll. Over the course of the lesson, I was called upon to talk about the following subjects: hippies, the popularity of Elvis, the difference between 1960’s protest songs and 1970’s punk, homelessness, the cost of apartments in NYC, and how much it costs to get a drivers’ license. Teaching English you realize how weird the language is -- like how “read” in the present tense is pronounced differently than “read” in the past tense.
Out of class I enjoy a celebrity-like status, which is tempered by the fact that some students are presumably making jokes at my expense while others are looking at me with adoration. When I bike up in the morning, students hang out the windows and shout hello. All day, students stop by my desk in the teacher’s room and say hi, look through the celebrity magazines I keep on my desk, or check up on my progress with Japanese. When I walk through the hall, (and this is not an exaggeration) conversations stop, jaws drop, and kids either back away (scared to have to speak English I presume), raise their fists (in an acknowledgment of my martial arts experience), or excitedly run up to make conversation. When I leave in the afternoon, kids scattered around the school grounds doing various activities all shout good-bye.
Saw the American rap star Sisqo on TV tonight -- he was being interviewed on a stage by two men and a woman, only one of whom spoke English. The look on his face and the way he carried himself struck me as exactly how I must look when I’m surrounded by Japanese people who are trying to talk to me in Japanese. He stood almost meekly, with his hands crossed in front of himself, and a stupid grin on his face. He spoke in broken English to try to communicate and tried to make a few jokes to sound “in” with the audience, like telling them his plan in Japan was to see a Pokemon movie, and then he seemed really pleased when everyone laughed. Normally tough and confident, Sisqo is a good study in how disempowering it is to loose your ability to communicate. Poor thing, he wasn’t himself at all. It was hilarious to watch and I totally identified.
