We’re in the middle of the work week and things are starting to shift towards the weekend. Kuniko and I are going to end the week with a little change of pace – we’re going out to dinner tonight at a Chinese restaurant that my friend Yoshi introduced me to. Called “Sacred Dragon” (è–é¾), it is a tiny little place in the quiet neighborhoods of Tarumi. For some reason we’ve both been craving Chinese food recently, so we’re scratching that itch today.
Despite a full work week things are going pretty smoothly at work. The classes are going fairly well, and I have a larger diversity of skill ranges this go-around. Student motivation remains high, and a lot of students are sent off on business trips fairly soon after taking my class. The realization that the English that they learn today will be needed tomorrow really makes a big difference in how the classes (and the students) progress.
Still, there are some students that fear wide open communication – and will go to great measures to avoid it. Often this is due to low confidence, and now one of my tasks is try to get these students to open up and have a natural conversation. It is not an easy task, because these students probably feel like they are great speakers of English under their controlled conditions – but I have to slowly and carefully knock them off their track and try to push the conversation to different areas. They’ve got to realize that real conversations rarely follow scripts – and sooner or later they’re going to have to get out of the kiddie pool and head to the deep end.
OK – off to work and then Tarumi for Chinese. We should have a fun weekend ahead of us, but more on that later.
