Today was one of my busy Wednesdays. I had four classes, and then the ESS meeting in the afternoon. The classes went pretty smoothly. The first class was a first year class, and I’ve got that lesson plan so wired into my head that I don’t even refer to my outline and notes anymore. By the end of the lesson, we’ve taught the students how to apologize politely.
My middle two classes were with the advanced English students. One class is taught by Tsutsumi sensei, and it is 35 boys and 6 girls. The class is pretty active, and the students talk back and forth with the teachers during the lesson, which is a good sign that they aren’t shy about speaking up.
In contrast, the next class is taught by Yamamoto sensei, and it has 35 girls and 7 boys. The teacher is not the relaxed Yamamoto sensei that is my point of contact at the school – this is another Yamamoto sensei – a kind of hyper-active under-confident English teacher that I have taught with the last few years. He is not confident with his own English, and especially in a situation with a native speaker in front of the top English students he is uncomfortable. He usually hides in the back of the class and clarifies things in Japanese – he tends to stay away from English. The class is quiet because he keeps strict control over utterances.
My goal today was to create a lesson plan that would draw out Yamamoto sensei and also to create a more lighthearted atmosphere among the quiet students in his class. I managed to get the students to relax a little bit, and I managed to get Yamamoto sensei up to the front of the class to act out a dialog with me, but other than that, it was more of the same. I know the students in that class and they are a lot of fun on their own – they just don’t want Yamamoto sensei to get mad at them so they clam up.
I have a couple of allies in that class, however: a boy and a girl that are really good at English. They volunteer when I ask questions and they really put in the effort when it matters. I like them a lot, and they have saved my bacon many times by providing answers in an otherwise silent class.
In a big surprise Kuniko got home at a reasonable hour. We had leftovers from the other night and just sat around relaxing. She played lots of Tetris on the gameboy, and I read a couple more chapters of Cold Mountain. We were both asleep by eleven o’clock in the evening.
