I just arrived home from my first day of classes at my new job. The verdict – it was great!
I got to work early today, and all the teachers were looking at their watches and acting like I was some kind of crazy workaholic. This is an easy trick to build favor early on – apparently most ALTs roll into work at the very last second possible. Show up an hour early and you are up for the ALT of the year award.
I had three classes today, and they all went really well. The first class was with Kuroda sensei. She is a younger teacher and she has a lot of enthusiasm and she really wants to learn more English. We went through the lesson without a hitch. The class was second year students – most of them around 13 years old. They did a great job with the quiz part of the lesson, and I think I need to ratchet up the difficulty a little bit. Still, I figure it’s best to start easy and help them build a little confidence.
The next two classes were with Harada sensei, and older gentleman who has the attitude like he’s seen it all, but he’s open to new things. I taught two first year classes with him, and they were really fun. The students had all kinds of questions for me: are you married? Do you have any brothers or sisters? How many times a month do you cut your toenails?
My school has some handicapped students in the student body – about 10 students. There was one in my class today, and he did just fine. I’m guessing he’s mildly retarded. In addition, I’m going to be teaching maybe one class a month to some retarded and disabled students. That sounds like a real challenge, and it’s something I’m looking forward to.
Everywhere I go in the school kids are saying hello. I’ve never been around students so eager to make a connection with me. They don’t have a lot of vocabulary to use, but they are dying to talk to me. I made lots of friends with the students today by just walking around during my free periods, and I’ve found that I really like working with this age group. I had a fun conversation with a first year student – fresh out of elementary school and just a tiny little guy. His got huge when he heard that I was wearing size 30 shoes – and we stood next to each other to compare our height. I’m by no means particularly big, but to him – I was something that he had never seen before.
Also, there was a huge relaxation about my presence in the staff room. Last Friday I noticed that some people seemed a little distant – just not so friendly. Today those people were much warmer and as they got used to me, they really were lightening up. During school clean-up time I went unbidden to the third year students classrooms, picked a random one, went inside and picked up a broom and started sweeping. The homeroom teacher was delighted. He had kind of ignored me the other day, but at the end of the day he was at my desk thanking me and laughing with me.
In short, I’m really into my new school. And it’s only day 2.
I’m back home now, and I’m about ready to clean up the house a little bit before Kuniko gets home. She wants to cook dinner tonight, so I’ll hang loose until she gets here and then see whats on the menu.
Tomorrow I have only one class, since there are some exams based on the summer’s homework. I’ll have a lot of time to study at my desk, and that is something I haven’t been able to do in a long time. My Japanese really needs some improvement.
