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.

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…