Today I went into work to help out the students who are going to Australia in a few weeks. Mr. Hayashi had organized a “summer camp” where the students would come and prepare for their trip. He asked me to come almost a month ago, and he also invited two other ALTs from the area.
I went upstairs to the work room, and sat with the students. We started off listening to a lecture about Australia from the history teacher, and then we had a lunchbreak. According to the schedule that someone had written on the board, the ALTs would be helping with the next part – making a map to present to the governor of Western Australia. Since it was lunchbreak I went to look for Mr. Hayashi and ask him what we should do to help.
When I got downstairs I saw Mr. Hayashi’s car pulling out of school and leaving, so I asked the history teacher what the plan was, and he was surprised – he said he didn’t know and he thought that I already did. It was right about then that the other ALTs arrived, and so we got busy with introductions, and we all had sandwiches for lunch and chatted, along with the principal and vice principal.
I got a chance to meet Lisa for the first time. She is an ALT from Australia, and so it was nice to have a real live Australian at the event to help out the students. We talked for a little bit and the history teacher listened eagerly, hoping to pick up some English from us.
I asked around and it turned out that Mr. Hayashi had forgotten an Australian calendar at his house. He was still gone when lunch was over, and so we all went upstairs and nobody knew exactly what we were supposed to do. The ALTs introduced themselves to the students, and after that everyone was kind of looking around waiting for something to happen.
After a few minutes I realized that nobody was going to really step forward and take charge, so I did. I found some paper that was in a pile of Mr. Hayashi’s stuff and I had Tsutsumi sensei pass it out to people. We split the group into three smaller groups, and then we talked with each group to give them some ideas about what to do. Sometimes I had to come up with ideas completely off the top of my head, but it served to get people talking amongst themselves. I think people were so grateful for any kind of leadership that they were willing to try anything.
I set up the other two ALTs with two groups, and then some Japanese English teachers with the other group, and then I rotated around the three groups getting ideas flowing and providing encouragement and correct English spelling.
The history teacher told me that Mr. Hayashi is very relaxed, so that is why they didn’t have much of a plan. He complained that he disappeared at a crucial time. I just said that now we are doing fine – everything is going OK. A few minutes later the vice principal pulled me aside and thanked me. He told me very sternly that Mr. Hayashi was not very prepared, and he didn’t look happy about it. Privately, I agree with him, but I didn’t mention it.
Finally about halfway through the project Mr. Hayashi made it back, and he checked out the progress. He thought things were going well, and he walked around helping with spelling and explanations.
After the students finished their projects we did practice presentations, and the students pretended to present them to the governor in English. They did a good job – I think they will be impressed in Australia.
We wrapped it up after that. Mr. Hayashi thanked us for helping out, and so we were free to go. It nice to chat with Jamie and Lisa – it had been a long time since I had seen Jamie. He is wrapping up his contract on the JET program, and is looking to stay around in the future. I’ll be interested to see how his job search goes.
I shared a train home with lots of the students from the camp, and I passed around a picture of Kuniko, and she got very good reviews from the students. I haven’t told them that we’re getting married in November, but I will sometime next term. It would be fun for the ESS students to be able to come to the ceremony.
I’m back home now, staying inside out of the heat. It’s a quiet night of TV and studying, since I went out last night to the yakitori. Tomorrow I have the whole day absolutely, positively, 100% free. What should I do?
