End of the School Year

So today was the last class of unit 11, which is the final term in our school's curriculum. That being said, the new classes start in April. Now they aren't exactly new classes exactly, because it's really the same curriculum I've been teaching all along, but with the same students "graduating" to a different curriculum. Good Lord, did that make any sense? I may or may not have mentioned that our school's curriculum is color-coded, with each class being a different color (Aqua, Lavender, Violet, etc.). Orange is where students begin when they're old enough to manage a textbook, so when "orange" students have done all 11 terms, they "graduate" to Lime class, which is the next step up in the curriculum. This is all just a really long way of saying that starting in April, I'll be doing what I've been doing all along, but I'll be seeing the same students in different classes. Sure there will be a few new students here and there and maybe even a few are going to be leaving, but nothing major.

Tomorrow I'll be having going to our monthly staff meeting and will be giving a demo on one of our new curriculum. I'm no longer sweating these meetings, or even the demos, and this time I feel well enough prepared. This new curriculum is for some of the younger students and let's just say I spent a little bit of time making finger puppets for tomorrow's demo. Tomorrow is also the last staff meeting for one of my fellow native teachers, as he's quitting and will have his last day sometime in the first week of March. There was going to be a bit of a farewell dinner after the meeting, but I won't be able to make it. He called me today to officially invite me, but a friend of mine from Tokyo will be coming down here to spend my long weekend with me. He understood and said it wasn't a big deal and that since he'll still be in Japan for a while after his last day, that there's time to reschedule a dinner. I still felt a bit guilty being the only reason the farewell dinner wouldn't be going down. He did say that regardless, they'd all be going out for dinner anyway...just a regular, non-farewell dinner. My friend is going to be arriving at the train station around 6pm and since the meeting ends at 4pm, there really wouldn't be enough time for me to go to the dinner other than it being like a cameo-appearance.

I have a few ideas as to what I want to do while my friend is visiting. I'm sure we'll go around to my regular haunts and maybe even go a few places that even I have yet to visit. Strength in numbers right? Anyway, I'm just happy to have a long weekend, time to relax and good company to spend it with. Until next time!

Quite a city.

Tiny ramen shop in Fukuoka.

Fukuoka, lookin' good during winter.

Hakata station...blingin'.

Like a soup line!

English biscuits, courtesy of Ruki (a fellow NT).

It takes all kinds

I've been here in Japan long enough to observe the various types of students that one can come across in this line of work. I haven't experienced all of them, but I have a good enough understanding, thanks to conversations with other teachers sharing their experiences, to give you all a nice little rundown! Fun-ward ho!

The middle-of-the-road student: This is your everyday, run-of-the-mill type of student who is usually well-mannered, knows what he's there (in the classroom) to do, doesn't give you any shit and goes with the flow of the lesson. These students are typically calm, don't go out of their way to brown-nose, but don't ignore you either.

The SUPER genki student: These students are incredibly loud and hyper (genki roughly translates into "good spirits", and not of the alcohol type). They constantly have to be told to quiet down, threatened with having game privileges taken from them, and generally just being more than any sane person can bare for longer than an hour.

The I-can't-be-bothered student: Ahh yes, these little gems. The ones that roll their eyes, whisper "mendoukusai" (which translates into 'annoying'), every time you try to get them to do something, and clearly would rather be anywhere than in your classroom.

The nightmare student: Well, these kids are pretty much monsters in children's clothing. They are loud, they don't want to be in your classroom, they could give a crap less that you're a foreigner trying to teach them English, they bully other students, they talk back and they don't use appropriate language.

The dream student: To be honest, they "types" are too few-and-far-between, but when you have one, you wanna hold on to them and keep them in mind whenever you're dealing with "nightmare" students or "I-can't-be-bothered" students. These students are the ones that make you want to go to class and basically do what you do. They're eager to learn, to try what they've learned and genuinely seem to enjoy being in your presence and the experience they're having. 

The class clown student: Oh they students are found the world over and Japan is certainly no exception. These little turkeys are always trying to make the others laugh, usually pissing me off in the process, and to be honest, are usually more behind than the other students. Gee, why is that? Because they're too busy trying to be funny.

That's pretty much a fair rundown that covers all, or at the least the majority, of student types that you're bound to comes across with this gig. Now, as for me, with the three schools that I teach at, I'd have to say that I have mostly, "middle-of-the-road" students with a nice handful of "class clowns" and "SUPER genki" students thrown in just to keep things interesting. I do have one or two nightmare students, but it's literally just one or two so the numbers aren't high enough to ruin things completely. I also have a couple of dream students that I tend to look forward to teaching.

One of my fellow NT's has an entire class full of nightmare teenagers that don't listen to a word she says and just play with their phones instead of paying attention to the lesson. Another NT I work with just quit yesterday, after three years in the game, because he simply couldn't take "it" anymore. "It" being the disrespectful, lazy and whiny behavior from one of his schools. Apparently there was an incident the other day which served as the final straw for his camel-ish back. So yeah, it's definitely not all fun and games and the companies do a good job at selling you a pretty picture of what it's like to teaching Japanese kids English. It didn't take me long to realize I'd been sold a bill of goods. These kids aren't as respectful and nice as you thought they'd be and they're not as taken with seeing a foreigner as you might think either. Go figure.Lesson learned. Now you learned something as well!

Yep, it's bacon and it shrinks like crazy.

Umm yeah, eggs and bacon.

This is what I did with it.

Gyudon (meat/rice bowl) with fish on the sides.

Same thing, with mixed veggies on the left.

Some crazy quattro pizza I had from Domino's in Osaka.

Same deal, but this was a spicy sub sandwich.

These shots of feet always seem popular.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...just me

Yes, that's a reference to good 'ol Superman. But why? Well, I came to the aid of an old woman who clearly was in need of assistance. Let me paint you a picture...I'll take you there. It was this past Sunday, around 5pm and I had only been back in Oita since around 2 (having spent the weekend in Miyazaki...more on that later), and the weather was per usual; rainy. I wanted to go to my friend Matt's crepe restaurant, Bon App!!, but they don't open for dinner until 5:30. So I'm walking back to my apartment having killed some time out in the city and I see this old lady walking in my direction. She looks as if she's struggling to walk and sure enough, she falls right there in the road, dropping her umbrella and hitting the street. I knew she hadn't just slipped. On this road, that I often walk, there isn't a lot of people around and it can often be deserted for long periods of time. I ran over to her and immediately starting asking her if she was okay, what was wrong and if she needed an ambulance. Ya know, the basics for when you see a person in distress. She didn't even have the energy to grab her umbrella again so I knew it was bad. She could hardly catch her breath and when she did take breathes, they were raspy and seemingly difficult for her to take. She was complaining about her legs and feet and how she just couldn't walk anymore. She also had a face mask on, when had me thinking that maybe she was already feeling sick, hence the raspy breathing and lack of energy. Who the heck knows. The fact that she was struggling to take deep breathes was what had me most concerned. Anyway, I'm standing there holding her hand and using my other hand to keep her umbrella over her so she doesn't get wet. I try to walk with her, very slowly, towards the next closest business so we can get her some help from someone with real Japanese language ability. However, she just couldn't do it. We stood there for about 5 minutes until a guy on a bicycle pedaled by. I flagged him down and told him the lady was in bad shape. By God's grace he worked at the salon nearby, which is also right next to my apartment building, and he told us he had a car and he'd go get it. After getting his car, he came right back and we helped put the old lady in the car. He also told me to hop in and that he'd give me a ride back home. We made sure she was reunited with her people back at the senior center where she was staying and she thanked me profusely. I told her I was just happy she was okay. I thanked the guy for helping out as well but he said, "no, no, I should thank you". I don't think I've ever been in that position before, but I'm glad I didn't freeze up or walk the other way. It felt good to help someone in need.

In other news, I did indeed have my weekend in Miyazaki covering for another NT. How did it go? Well, it was a mixed bag. Total, I only covered five of his lessons, which again boggles my mind in that it's a total of six hours commuting time for five hours of lessons. I have to just assume the company is really short-staffed and they had no choice but to send me all that way. Nevertheless, I enjoy the hotel that they set me up at in Miyazaki and this time was really no different. Comfy as usual. I didn't care for how the NT at this school conducts the flow of their lessons. It's definitely different from my own style and you can just tell in the way the students behave and what they expect in the lesson. We simply do things differently at my schools. As for the mixed bag comment, well the first night, Friday, I had three lessons. The first was a group of 9 year olds and they were all very loud and energetic, possibly excited at the fact that they were dealing with a new foreigner. They weren't ill-mannered or anything like that, simply too hyper to listen and focus properly. The next class were 11 year olds and they were awesome. Very shy at first, but soon warmed up to me and seemed to enjoy the lesson, as did I. Last were the junior kids, around 14-15 years olds. From the get-go they were all really polite and well-behaved as they came in. They remained that way throughout the lesson and I had a good time with them. A nice way to end the day. The next day, Saturday, I only had two lessons to teach. The first being another group of 11 year olds, same lesson material as on Friday, but this group was quite different. They were really shy and a bit more behind than the other class. Meaning they simply didn't know as much. It wasn't horrible and it wasn't great, simply so-so. The last class was a group of 7 year olds and it was only four boys, but my God, what a nightmare group of boys to have. These guys were like animals that had broken out of the zoo and weren't gonna be calming down without a tranquilizer. I did my best with them, but it was certainly an exercise in patience. I'm not sure how much English they retained but to be honest, all I could think of was how happy I was to not have that class every month.

An interesting past week to say the least and thus the remainder of March is at my regular schools with another week of coverage for an NT. Oh how I hope it's the last bit of covering I do for a while. This month is also the last month of the year, curriculum wise, as the new school year starts in April. That means that in April, I'll have new classes at each of my schools with my current students "graduating" to the new curriculum level. Same kids, just in different classes learning different stuff. We'll see what happens and you can be sure I'll post about it.

A pizza flavored steamed bun. Mediocre.

This is what a microwaved pizza looks like.

The bag reads, "Happy Salt" flavor. Not bad.

One of my JT's teaching.

Ditto.

Meh, it was alright I guess.

A fellow NT attempting to send money home at the bank.