Today was my first day actually team teaching, and it was a pretty interesting class. I had only one class the whole day, so I was able to focus. My teacher, Miss Kageyama, said she was very nervous on the way to the class, and I couldn’t help but think that if she was nervous, how about me? I’m teaching a class for the first time in a foreign country, teaching a foreign language, with virtually no experience.
I had planned enough work for a 50 minute class, and as I got started, I realized that things were happening much faster than I expected. As I started, all of the kids gave me blank stares and when I asked for volunteers, they stared even harder at their desks, trying to avoid eye contact. I got off to a rocky start – I talked too fast, and my voice was too quiet for the students to hear. Miss Kageyama let me know when I was doing something wrong, and I was impressed with her poise given the situation.
I finished all of my presentation, and then realized that there was no clock in the room, so I didn’t know how much time was left to kill. I asked Miss Kageyama, and she said that we had almost twenty minutes left! I couldn’t believe how quickly the activities had been finished. It wasn’t really that the students were that sharp, it was that I was talking fast, and I hadn’t planned well. I had planned on time for the students to respond and ask questions, and that never really happened. Miss Kageyama did some quick thinking on her feet, and we had the students begin their homework assignment in class. They were quietly working, and when I approached, they giggled or talked with their friends.
Once the bell rang, the students left, and I was left with a feeling of disorientation – it felt like I really hashed up the class. Miss Kageyama tried to help by telling me how well it went, but I think it was a very Japanese way of saying that I should hang in there and things would get better.
The rest of the day was spent preparing my lessons for Wednesday, and trying to learn from my mistakes in the first class. In retrospect, it was great to have the time to refine the lesson and get back on track.
At about 4 o’clock, one of the English teachers brought the table tennis coach over and introduced me. In my speech in front of the teachers I had mentioned that ping pong was one of my hobbies, and the teacher was curious to see if I wanted to play with them – the school has a table tennis club. I didn’t have gym clothes, so I went to the gym and played in my nice clothes – this opportunity was too good to miss.
I’ll cut right to the chase and tell you that I got my ass kicked. Several times, as a matter of fact. They had a paddle for me that bounced the ball across the room if I even tapped it, and the style of play was incredibly different than anything I’ve ever seen before. I was able to slam it a couple of times, and I made some returns that made the whole table tennis club oooohhh and aaaaahh. Other than that, I was a merely a speed bump for the coach and their top player. The coach was highly amused, and offered to teach me some of the moves sometime – I’m an honorary member of the ping pong club. I returned to the teacher’s room a sweaty mess, but I was pretty happy. It was a great experience to play someone with that kind of skill.
Mel was hosting a small party upstairs and so when I got home, I went up to help out a bit. Melanie made some homemade salsa, and then we laid out some salty snacks for everyone. The party went pretty well, and we compared notes on our first days teaching. It was a actually a birthday party for one of the Japanese guys that hosted a BBQ a while back – he was turning 20 years old. At 20 years old, you are allowed to drink, and so it was kind of cool that he chose to spend a milestone birthday with a bunch of foreigners. His English isn’t very strong, about the same as my Japanese. We switched back and forth while talking, and it was great communicating with someone with such a different background. We adjourned the party fairly early, and I was in bed early to get ready for the next day.
