Orientation Camp

In the mountainous area of Nagano prefecture our school own a study house which can accommodate about 200 students and maybe twenty teachers. The study house is located in a town called Tateshina and has a huge kitchen with a dining hall, classrooms, bedrooms, bathing facilities, and recreational areas for all the 200 students. From next week the first graders of my school will go there in two groups, the first one from Monday to Wednesday, and the second one from Wednesday to Friday. This orientation camp is for them to spend some time together and hopefully make new friends.
Every year after the first graders come back from this camp they become more uncontrollable than before because somehow they form strong alliances to do the opposite thing the teachers ask from them. I wonder how things will change after this year's orientation camp.
I'm not sure about their schedule for this year but usually they'll go to visit some sort of zoo, do a mountain hike and make either Japanese Soba noodles or butter. In the evening they'll do some recreational activities in the dining hall before going to bed. Well, going to bed doesn't mean going to sleep... they usually stay awake for a very long time preventing the tired teacher from getting their rest.
Hiking course on Kurumayama:

April 2009

A New school year has started on April seventh. The opening ceremony was attended by various principals from other schools, PTA members, all the school staff, and the freshmen parents. I was placed at the gymnasium's entrance to guide students and parents to their seats, making sure the entrance didn't get clogged up. It was nice to see new uniforms being worn for the first time with fresh creases along the sleeves and back, buttons all shiny.

As every year, every freshman's name is called, they'll stand up and and reply, and sit down again one by one. Then there are seemingly endless speeches from principals, vice principals, and other "important" people. A freshman's representative delivers a statement of commitment to the school and its curriculum. Japanese people love these kind of things where everything is done by tradition and in a strict time frame. Really nothing fun about it, but most parents might feel relieved that their children are in disciplined hands.

After the entrance ceremony the first year students go to their first homeroom class with their homeroom mentor. Due to a revised time schedule the homeroom class was shrunken down to a bare 35 minutes. There was too much information to be given in such a short time so much was printed out on paper. Parents filled the back of the classrooms and the corridor watching their sons and daughters first day at high school.

Speech Contest Results

Fourteen participants eventually made it through to the speech contest being properly prepared. As the only English native teacher at my school, I assigned myself to the final coaching of the speech contestants. One week before the actual speech contest I had to students do their speech in front of me,after which I gave them advice to improve pronunciation and intonation. I tried to give all speech participants an equal amount of advice and coaching.

There were three judges including me. Of course the other two judges were English teachers with many years of experience. We judged the speech participants on the contents and structure for which they could score 30 points. Pronunciation, rhythem, and intonation was worth another 30 points. Lastly, delivery and comprehensibility could score a big 40 points. The time in between speeches was quite short so we had to decide their score quickly and write some comments.

This time all the participants really prepared well which made it very difficult to judge. For a small school as mine with only little over four hundred potential participants we really had the ones with most potential and ability performing their speeches. At the final count, the first three prizes were only 12 points apart.

Before awarding the trophies I was asked to summarize the contest and give a short speech. I could only praise the participants and told them they did an excellent job. I explained that it was hard for the judges to make decisions because all speeches were very good. Our principal awarded the trophies and certificates and spoke a few words in his best English.

Over all, I think this years speech contest was very successful and I hope this positive tradition will grow more popular because Japanese students can learn a lot from this experience.

Working Hours

Full-time foreign teachers at Japanese schools are expected to work the same amount of days and similar hours every day as their Japanese counterparts. This means that during summer, winter, and spring breaks we actually don't have any breaks... Meetings and lectures are scheduled during these holidays to keep us off the streets. Even the Sundays which are very valuable to most teachers to get some R & R are sometimes rescheduled as working days. In my case, I am also coaching the school's soccer team which results in zero holidays. If there is only practice on the weekends, I try to get one of the other teachers to supervise the team so that I can spend some time relaxing at home.

I just realized that after this non-stop weekend there is again a fully scheduled week with the Japanese national holiday (March 20th Shunbun-No-Hi) filled with a practice match re-scheduled from Sunday the 22nd because that day freshmen will come to take placement tests. This will eventually result in a 20-day non-stop working streak if I don't collapse before that.

Speech Contest

In March there will be an English speech contest at my school. At first only five students applied to participate so I went around the school during break time and spoke to some students who have good English skills. I encouraged about 15 students of the first and second grade to sign up for the English speech contest. Eventually ten more joined the contest.


Yesterday we had a meeting with all English teachers and divided the students and assigned them to the teachers. Assigned Teachers will support the students and correct the written speech content.


I made a summary of important points related to the judging of the speech. Judges will look for, Contents and structure (30 points), delivery and comprehensibility (40 points), pronunciation intonation rhythm (30 points). As most participants are first graders with little experience, I added a list with possible topics.


The winner of the English speech contest will be send to next level at which 24 winners of different high schools from all over Japan will compete. Last year we came in fourth which was the highest place ever for my school. My school principal and English teachers were very proud and pleased. I want to aim for at least a top 10 place, but this really depends on the willingness and abilities of this year's winner.

Suberidome

What is Suberidome?

Suberidome means taking the entrance examination to a high school or university as a safety measure in case one fails at other high schools or universities. When the time comes that one has to choose a new school or university to continue one’s studies thing get very exiting. However, here in Japan there is a system that says one can only apply to a limited number of schools. This means, a student can take an entrance exam for a high-level high school or university which he or she will probably fail, but if luck is on the student’s side the is a slight possibility, “The Challenge”. Next, after deciding a “challenge exam” one has to find the most appropriate level high school or university according to the student’s current academically proven level, “Desired School”. Taking the general entrance exam for “The desired School” is most likely to be passed but there is of course the possibility that due to unforeseen circumstances this test is failed. Then what do they do? They need a fail-safe to prevent tumbling down to a very low level school, this preventive measure or test is called a Suberidome or fail-safe from sliding down. Taking an entrance examination at a high school or university which is just slightly under one’s academic level with an 80 to 90 percent passing chance is a Suberidome.

Here in Japan one can take only two entrance examinations for public high schools or universities and unlimited tests at private high schools or universities. The point is however, that public schools are very cheap because they are government supported and private high schools and universities have high matriculation fees and even taking one entrance exam can cost from 20,000 up to 80,000 (or even more) Japanese Yen. This can get quite expensive if the student keeps failing tests. So the “Fail-safe Suberidome” test is taken to make sure that the student can enroll at a reasonable school with an almost appropriate academic level.

Ippan Shiken, General Entrance Examination

Here in Japan most high schools have two or three entrance examinations, of which one is an Ippan Shiken. Junior high school students take this test if they wish to enroll at a high school, or as in case of my high school, as “Suberidome.” Suberidome means, something which prevents someone from sliding down. Any given high school in Japan makes their own Ippan Shiken, and this test represents the level of education or level of knowledge required for that school. It is common for more students to take the test than can actually enroll into the school in April. After the test is taken, The average score is calculated and according to that a minimum for enrolling is decided. Soon after the results are calculated, the students are notified by mail and from there they have until about the 20th of March to decide whether they actually wish to enroll or not. For the Japanese private high schools this is one of the most exiting months of the year because they need a certain amount of students to enter in order to be able to pay the bills.

Ippan Shiken was held at my school last Saturday. About 500 junior high school students came to take the test. Tests were also held at other (host) schools in surrounding cities so the total number of students taking the Ippan Shiken for my school was about 1500. However, we are looking to accept about 240 students to enroll as first years from April.

Center shiken Listening details

UPDATE (Jan 24, 2009) : I have created a new blog exclusively devoted to Center Shiken English and English Listening, for more information on the Center Shiken English please go here from now on ---> Center Shiken


The center shiken listening test is made up of four parts. Center Shiken Listening first part is the easiest. there are six questions with each four possible answers. Part one has four pictures from which only one is correct. students listen to the conversation or description, read the question above the picture and choose the picture which answers the question best and mark their answer on the answer sheet. The pictures are simple and the questions too.
Center Shiken Listening Part two, a dialog will be played and the students have to choose how this conversation is going to continue. The challenge here is to figure out who is going to say the next sentence, the man or the woman. For example, if the man asks a question, the correct answer to choose is the answer to this question. some times the man or the woman will say something like "well..." then we have to find and think how this sentence is going to continue. Part two of the center listening test has usually seven questions.
Center Shiken Listening Part three is divided into section A and B. In section A students listen to a conversation and have to answer the question on the answer sheet. These conversations are of medium length and can be answered without much effort if the students are exposed to native English on a weekly basis. There are three separate dialogs with each four possible answers.
Center Shiken Listening Part three section B is usually something like a schedule or a room layout. under this there are about six pictures. There are three questions combined here and there are six possible answers to choose from. Again the students listen to a conversation and have to match the correct picture with the correct date or place in a room. Sometimes these questions can be confusing since most of the six pictures would be mentioned.
Center Shiken Listening Part four section A, are three questions. For each question they listen to one story, report, interview etc. This is where the questions start to get trickier and quite difficult.
Center Shiken Listening Part four section B. Now this will be one report or story with three questions. This is very long and unless the students are geniuses they should be taking notes while listening and should have read the questions before the section starts playing.

More reports and advise is coming soon!!

Center Listening Test

UPDATE (Jan 24, 2009) : I have created a new blog exclusively devoted to Center Shiken English and English Listening, for more information on the Center Shiken English please go here from now on ---> Center Shiken

At my high school we have two different courses, one sends students to private universities (Shiritsu) and the other one to public universities (Kokuritsu) in Japan. in general the public university entrance examinations are more difficult than the private ones.
so, last week i gave the second graders their first Center shiken Listening practice test. i didn't give them much advise but just suggested them to concentrate for the duration of the test which is thirty minutes. this is the top class of the two. the other class which has many students who are a member of sport clubs (Bukatsu) had their try to day and didn't do very well. Bukatsu really prevents the students from studying as hard as they actually should. at the moment they practice for twenty minutes a week with easier listening text books but i am considering to increase this to about thirty minutes a week by the end of this second term.
the maximum score of the Center listening test is fifty points, that is, two point a question. the current class of third graders which will take the Center listening test does the test at about thirty two points on average, which is a bit higher then the Japanese average but not yet satisfactory to me. we'll do more practicing about one and a half month before the actual Center listening test is on January 17 and 18. minus the winter break that means I'll start increasing practice around mid November.

Today's morning class

How surprised I was when starting my class this morning. All students stood up and greeted me in a big unified voice. Usually this class breaks out in one big chatting club, like a popular bar on Saturday night. Today i asked them only twice and they all opened their text books and quickly found the correct page. (the ones who brought their textbooks that is...) Naturally some couldn't resist talking quietly with nearby classmates but the atmosphere was far better than it had been up to now. we swiftly went through the pages and we moved on to some speaking exercises. Before the students had been somewhat reluctant to speak English in a loud voice, (this is strange because they never hold back when chatting with their friends in Japanese) but today most students just did as I requested from them.
During the second part of the lesson we did some listening exercises as a warming up for the up coming mid-term tests. They didn't do very well on the test but they listened to my explanations of the questions and took notes. For a Friday morning this was an exceptionally fine class and it didn't make me tired at all!! I am anxious to teach them again next week and see if they were for real or just pretending to be good students...

Japanese high school principals

Today and tomorrow there will be a meeting of Japanese private high school principals at our school. For two weeks teachers and administrative office workers have been preparing to receive about twenty-five high school principals from high schools in our area. They’re going to have a meeting from twelve to four pm, with an extraordinary meal in between. Restaurant chefs came with a truck and used the school cooking classroom as their kitchen. Why have we teachers never received such excellent meals? As a “thank you for working so hard” It’s just too rude because our school is paying for everything. So that’s why we won’t get extra bonuses!! I think we are paying for them to stay at a luxurious hotel somewhere along the Ibaraki coast line with hot springs, meals and whatever more. Busses are being chartered and furniture is rented. I have been pondering what our or my benefit of all this money spending is going to be… But I haven’t told you about the biggest price tag of all. It was decided two years ago that this meeting of high school principals was going to be held here. Last summer an elevator was build especially for these people. It must have cost a fortune for only three floors, and building an elevator for twenty-five old people is just insane!! All summer it took to break walls, whack in the doors, build a shaft, construct the elevator, and neatly finishing things off. Actually the new elevator goes to the fourth floor but there it opens up into the music room and that room would not be fit to have “high status” principals walking through it. So, guess where the meeting will be held… Right, on the FOURTH floor!! Construction was so noisy and created much disturbance for many classes and students in a crucial stage of university examination preparatory studies. I do admit it has slightly eased our jobs. Our teachers room or staffroom is located on the second floor, so when copy paper or textbooks have to be brought to the staffroom we can load everything into the elevator and get the job done without breaking a sweat.

Chugakko Houmon visiting junior high schools

Here in Japan there are quite a few private high schools which have to recruit new students every year. My high school is located in area where there are only a few private high schools. In Japan the public high schools’ level is usually higher than that of private high schools. In the third grade of junior high school students take entrance exams to enter a high school. If students flunk the test the only option they have is to go to a private high school. Private high schools however, are much more expensive so students study hard to pass the examination. During the last ten years or so, the Japanese population has been significantly decreasing so it is becoming more difficult to recruit new students every year. Our high school has scholarships for students with high academic scores and for students who are excellent at sports. Having a strong sport club will attract more students which is good for the school.

Last Friday all the teachers of my high school went to visit junior high schools. This is called Chugakko Houmon. Usually two teachers pair up and visit about six to eight junior high school to talk to the teachers there. We inform them of our best academic achievements, top universities where our students were able to pass the exam, and best performance of our clubs. Last year the table tennis club was number one of the prefecture and the tennis club played on national level. We prepared brochures for each graduating student at the junior high schools and some posters to be hung on the school wall.

Together with another teacher I visited six junior high schools in Mito city, Ibaraki prefecture. In Mito city the competition is quite fierce because that city has more than ten private high schools. My high school is located about forty kilometers from Mito city in the middle of nowhere surrounded by rice paddies. Students or parents of students who are looking for decent education and raising well behaved children often choose for my school. Since there is nothing interesting around this school, students are able to focus on their studies or sport club and won’t be distracted by the temptations of department stores, shopping malls, or amusement arcades. These are some of the strong sales points of my high school. In the past, only a few students from Mito city have chosen to attend my school but hopefully this will change in the near future.

Soccer and studying

Today is Friday, next week from Tuesday we’ll have end-of-term-tests. But on Sunday my soccer team has to play a match from one o’clock. That’s why they have been training hard this week. This leaves us with the problem that they have very little time to study for the test. And even when they have some free time, they’ll be exhausted from training sessions. So, I decided that they are going to study after soccer practice as a team in the classroom. They bring their textbooks and are free to study any subject they want to. On normal week days they study from seven P.M. until eight P.M. This is because school rules state that students have to leave school property by eight o’clock. It’s not very long, just one hour but if they one of the soccer team members fails a subject they have to come to after school classes for a week and can therefore not come to soccer practice. This is not good for the team because they can’t practice soccer together…

Today however, we are going to break this rule a bit and study until nine o’clock. This is also because tomorrow will be a day off so they can sleep as long as they want. Hopefully they’ll study some more tomorrow. There are lots of first graders in the soccer team and this will be their first term test. They do not know how difficult or easy it is so I wish they over-prepare rather than be surprised when the test turns out to be extremely difficult. I know I can’t force stuff into their heads but am worried about their performance.

I am just an English teacher, managing the school soccer club is an appointed job but is officially volunteer work. It feels that most of the soccer team members have yet to realize this. And especially here now, I stay with them to make sure they study and fall asleep or start chatting.

Teaching Japanese to speak English

At my current Japanese high school I am the only foreign or native teacher. It is my job to instruct the students on how to improve their pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm of English. It is a fact that Japanese people in general don't have many opportunities to use their English abilities. Japan is an island nation and foreigner visitor concentration is mainly in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, and Sapporo. Therefor the motivation level to study spoken English might be lower than in other Asian (mainland) countries. Here in Japan, focus of teaching and studying English is on passing exams with lots of grammatical questions. Acquiring a (more) practical English speaking ability is not considered to be of much importance. Besides teaching spoken English I practice lots of listening exercises with my students so that they are able to understand what is being said in conversations. These listening exercises let students focus on eliciting or being able to catch important keywords in sentences, so that they can almost guess the meaning of what is being said without knowing the meaning of all words. Other exercises ask students to match a sentence they hear with a picture. But most difficult for them is to listen to a longer dialog after which they have to answer a few questions. These questions usually have multiple-choice answers.

I am able to speak three languages and have experienced how useful it is to have these abilities while traveling the globe. Here in Japan I am trying to explain my students the importance of being able to speak English by sharing my experience. Having tried many approaches to get the students to speak English, I found that if there is no pressure, that the students won't really cooperate. I have tried to give them simple interview hand-outs so that they can walk around and interview their classmates, but it is difficult to control the class and almost impossible to check if they're all actually speaking English. Also I have tried whole class activities where I had them line-up and interview each other with a competitive element in it. However, If only a few students refuse to participate, the whole activity just doesn't work properly and very little is learned.

Now the only thing I do is "speaking tests". Students practice short dialogs from a textbook by repeating after me. I explain the meaning of the sentences and proper pronunciation of words. Next is sentence rhythm and intonation. Then the students find a partner they feel comfortable with and practice reading the dialog a few times. The last thing I do is have them repeat on more time after me the whole dialog and then I give them time to memorize their part of the dialog. This is usually only a few sentences and could be done in about twenty minutes if done seriously. The following lesson the whole dialog is review one more time. Most students have practiced at home the day before or in the morning. During the lesson I have all pairs come to me and act out the dialog from memory. I give them points for their pronunciation, rhythm and intonation, and correct memorization. Most student pass the test the first time because if they don't, they have to take it again after school. This they do not like, so most students prepare for the speaking test properly.

I have applied this type of lesson for about a year now and am still very satisfied with the results. Students complained in the beginning but now they are used to it and find ways to make it more amusing for themselves. I stimulate them to use gestures which most of them enjoy very much.

Japanese high school students' behavior

Students’ behavior

Another day at a Japanese high school…

During one of my lessons today, some students seemed to think that they were not a part of the whole class and that rules didn’t apply to them. I usually have the students come to me to take a “speaking test”. This means, that they have to memorize a short dialog from the textbook, and then role-play it in front of me. I give them sufficient time to practice during the first lesson and tell them that they have to do the rest at home or after school in preparation of the second lesson. These two boys today were at the end of the line and were chatting about other stuff and fooling around. When they finally came to me to take the speaking test they couldn’t remember much and were trying to cheat by holding notes in their hands. They failed the test… and will come after school today to re-try.

On top of this, I caught one student using his cell phone during my lesson. In Japanese high schools (as well as junior and elementary schools) students are never allowed to use their cell phone on school ground. In this case I was obligated to take the cell phone away from him and keep it for one week. When I went over to confront him with this news, he wasn’t too happy about handing it to me and actually refused to give it. He put the cell phone in his pocket and started to make up excuses. I’ve been there before and just let him be for the moment. After the class I asked him to follow me to the staffroom where I got his homeroom teacher to talk to him. He soon admitted to using his cell but gave a brilliant excuse. Unfortunately his homeroom teacher wasn’t falling for his excuse and took his phone, then scolded him for a few minutes before returning him to the classroom.

Was I satisfied?

No!

This student’s behavior has been insufficient from the beginning when he entered this school as a first grader and it hasn’t improved much. Now, he’ll be pissed-off with me for taking away his cell phone. Therefore, during the next lesson he’ll probably be even less enthusiastic to participate in learning English. But I had to set an example for the rest of the class otherwise all students will be using their cell phone the next lesson. I’ll probably go to him at the end of this week to have a friendly chat to try and patch things up a bit…

School festival called Bunkasai

This weekend my school had it's annual culture festival. Actually the Japanese culture festival is held somewhere in November (probably on the third) but because around that time the high school students have to study hard for their university entrance exams, the culture festival is usually moved to June.

It took teachers around one month to prepare for the festival, planning and meetings with the students etc. On Saturday we surprisingly had good weather and performances were held outside in front of the school. Usually the high-school culture festival is held for two days. The first day is for students at the school only and on the second day students from other high-schools come as well as parent and people from the neighborhood. The third-graders usually prepare food and snacks while the first and second graders put up small events such as a haunted house, quiz shows, games, and other entertaining events.

Classes also had short dance performances on a stage in front of the school. They practiced for about a month everyday after school to remember all the steps and turns. Somehow this year we experienced many problems with the speakers, microphones, and audio players. Some performances were postponed while equipment was being fixed. I've heard this often happens at the schools since the teachers are not professional disc jockeys nor electricians, so things just don't go as smooth as we want them to.

This year I was in charge of photography and videotaping the whole event. I found myself running around from early morning to late afternoon to be wherever events and performances took place. I thought it would be a piece of cake, just snapping a few pics around the school, but it was hard!! Running up and down the stairs from the front to the back of the school. Over two days I took about 1100 pictures!

This year our high-school culture-festival was very successful due to the hard work of the Seitokai, which is the student council, they worked till late at night for weeks. The Seitokai arranged everything in detail and made schedules for classes and teachers with time-tables, location, and descriptions.

Looking back, I must admit that all the little Japanese teenagers at my school did very well to make this year's school festival a very successful one.

High school culture festival called Bunkasai

High-school culture festival or Bunkasai

The school-culture festival will be held tomorrow. At a high-school culture-festival, students usually cook Japanese traditional food or internationally well known dishes. This is a time where all students of a class have to work together in preparing food and drinks. Tasks have to be divided: a group which practices cooking, a group which buys food supplies, a group which makes fliers and posters to promote their food stall, a group which sets up the tents outside. The Japanese-high-school culture-festival is not only about making food, some classes choose to do other activities. One activity might be to make a performance like a dance or a short play. Students will practice for weeks to remember and perfect their dance steps. Another class activity might be to turn their classroom into a haunted house or an amusement hall, some might think up some games to play. whatever they choose, they always take several weeks to prepare.

The school-festival is usually called a "Bunkasai" but this means a Culture-festival. However, culture does not have much to do with the whole festival. Japanese schools used to have a real culture festival, but these days anything goes.

Japanese high school rules

Japanese high school rules

In Japan, and especially at private schools, the rules regarding clothes (uniform) and hair-style are very strict. Japanese have naturally black hair, so the rule is that everyone should have their hair black. Lately it has been a fad for Japanese to dye their hair in different colors, usually brown or dark red. When teachers notice this, students will be scolded and send to a beautician to fix their hair and dye it black again.

At my high-school the students must wear their uniform in the morning when they come to school and also when going home. When school ends around three thirty, students leave in groups and walk toward the nearest station. On the way there, teachers will sometimes stand guard to make sure all students are wearing their uniform and that their buttons are closed. However, many students are a member of a club here in Japan. So after school they will practice and go home around eight. At this late hour, there are no teachers along the road so some might go home wearing their sports wear.

The image of a private school here in Japan is extremely important. Of course test scores and successful admission to high-level universities play a significant role. But the general impressions of the students, who are seen on the street and in shopping malls, weigh heavily too. It are the junior high schools who send and recommend high-schools to their students and naturally the opinion of the school and attitude of the high-school students will be take into consideration. Parents pay lots of money to private schools to have their children put through high-school education.

Japanese high-school soccer-club

Japanese high school soccer club

When I started working at my Japanese-high-school, it was all new for me and had to get used to the older students with their peculiar hormone driven attitudes. Being a manager of the high school soccer-club, I enthusiastically went down to the soccer pitch and kicked the ball around with the boys of the soccer-club a couple of times a week. However, after a month or so, the soccer-club member whom I had in my English classes as well, became very lazy during my classes. I didn’t know what to do with them since I wished to maintain a good relation with them. They were talking, sleeping, and walking during my classes and I often kindly asked them to pay more attention to the lesson. I was very concerned with maintaining a friendly relation with them. But I came to realize that I was not treating the rest of the class fairly compared my soccer-club kids. I decided to act more strictly during my classes to maintain control.

Here in Japan it seems that the members of a high-school-soccer-club always have to take on a kind of wild, rebellious look. This creates trouble for them because when playing matches with other schools the image of a school depends on the ones representing it. So when their hair, clothes and attitude is not in order, they will be (have to be) scolded. When I started reminding my students of their hair and attitude issues they became increasingly unhappy and absolutely boycotted my classes. It was a hard year… Most members of the then second grade had many issues with their attitude. Some were temporarily suspended from school for various reasons, and others had to stay in detention class. Gradually this also affected the soccer-club and most quit during the year.

We as managers should have been stricter from the beginning and should have given more guidance. When the third graders left the soccer-club to prepare for their university entrance exams, we were left with about eight members only.

This year, new first graders signed up and we currently have sixteen members…

Working at a Japanese high school

Working at a Japanese high school

I have been working at my current Japanese-high-school for over one year now. Before starting at this high school, I used to work at junior high schools and before that I had worked one year at elementary schools. The elementary schools and junior high schools I used to work at were located in the countryside and the average IQ-level wasn’t very high. Both elementary and junior high schools were lots of fun but the focus of the English classes was more on entertainment and having fun with English than on actually learning practical English. It was a tough decision to quit working at the junior high schools where I had been for about three years but I really wanted to teach English in a more serious and effective environment.

My current high school is located in Ibaraki prefecture in the Kanto region of Japan. Again I have ended up in a quite rural location and the average student is more interested in sports or other club activities than in studying. But now, with a year of experience I have found ways to have (most) students pay attention during class and cooperate while doing other activities than studying from the textbook. In Japan the general idea of teaching a class is that it has to be an entertaining and fun class. Whatever the subject, even math, should be a fun class. How the teachers are supposed to do that has never been clearly explained… Of course it is a fact that when teachers and their classes are interesting the students will pay closer attention to what is being said, and will probably learn more than when teachers are boring and the classes are dull.

Somehow I guess that I am a cheerful person and that I like to crack a joke once in a while, so this helps during my classes to keep the students smiling and paying attention to whatever I say. Compared to junior-high-schools and elementary-schools I am doing less dancing and jumping in front of the class these days and can make simple jokes with words only.

Surprisingly I have been made manager of the soccer club instead of the English club. Actually I’m not sure if I want to complain about this since the most students interested in the English club are a bit nerdish and weird. The students of my soccer club are much more fun, alive-and-kicking…