Thursday’s classes went much smoother than the day before – no behavior problems or crazy kids. Actually, there was one crazy kid, but he’s the only one in the class. The other students ignore him, I think the lack of attention will calm him down over time.
It’s a little early, but I think that I’m not a big fan of the textbook that I’m using with the students. There’s a lot of reasons why, but I’ll give you an example from today’s lesson.
I was teaching the students how to make sentences in English and how they change based on the subject. For example, “I wash my hair” becomes “He washes his hair”. Not only does the subject “he” change, but you also have to change “my” to “his”. It’s a little difficult for Japanese speakers because the grammar structure is completely different from Japanese. “We”, “he”, “she”, “they”, “I” – all of these have different modifiers.
This is tough – in junior high school we spent almost a month on understanding this conceptually and being able to use it. With this text book we are supposed to cover it in two 50 minute classes over two weeks. And these two classes are the first two after a month off for spring break.
The strangest part for me is that my students cannot even answer if I ask basic questions like “How are you?” It seems ridiculous to teach grammar structures with no basic foundation. Combine this with the students’ fear of speaking out in English and making a mistake, being embarrassed about having unknown boys and girls around, and having a native speaker as a teacher. It seems too great a challenge for them.
My plan is to get through this week’s lessons, and then spend some time re-thinking my approach over the coming Golden Week. Maybe I can come up with a plan that will teach them not only English, but how to use it.
OK, rant over.
