"This… is…. a… pen!!! THIS IS A PEN!"

He plucked his blue pen from his bedazzled Winnie-the-Pooh tin pencil case. (I have the same one... do you think he'll bedazzle mine, too? Kawaii!!) So, there he was clutching his blue pen and hunched over his worksheet like a model student. He suddenly burst out into laughter, hollering “This… is… a… pen!!! THIS IS A PEN!!!” He waved his own pen around, sarcastically demonstrating that he was having an amazing experience discovering a blue pen. That day, the language target in the optional English was: "This is..."

This simple sentence is pretty standard stuff when it comes to teaching English in my classrooms. We feed the students these simple sentences, which will not really help them develop stellar conversational skills in the real world. We are mostly focused on honing the students’ ability to translate written English into Japanese. Reading and writing definitely trump oral communication.

It’s a tragic thing, because my kids can’t even hold down small talk. A couple weeks ago, I spent some time coaching some of the san-nensei students for their EIKEN test. It’s a test that measures their proficiency in English; a decent score on such a test can only enhance their applications to area high schools.

Anyways, they were able to answer all of the questions for which they’d already written and rehearsed their answers. But if I added follow-up questions, I was met with many blank stares. “Awesome, you play basketball! How long have you been playing?” (Blank stare). “Ah, you like going shopping. What do you like buying?” (Blank stare).

Obviously, some things need to change. It’s not one person’s fault. I’d attribute many failings of EFL/ESL to the shaping of the education system here. Like everyone else has said before me, the teachers and students are driven to plow through the curriculum because they want to excel on the tests. They don’t have time to hone their listening and speaking skills. It’s all about translating and such.

I should mention that the Japanese education system is set up differently than the one back home. Kids attend elementary school from grades one through six. They move onto junior high school for grades 7-9, which explains why most of my students are between the ages of 12 and 15. As a san-nensei (third-grader, particularly in junior high school), they spend a lot of time writing entrance examinations to get into their preferred high school. Intense, no? To think, the only reason I was able to transfer into Colonel By can be attributed to the fact thats I simply expressed an interest in its unique International Baccalaureate Programme and the Spanish classes. Oh, and all of my childhood friends were going there. Lame?! Yes. But I loved it there. End tangent.

And to end this post, I'd like to say that the student excited by the pen is hilarious in general. He does the whole Japanese "ehhhhhh" sound to perfection. "Ehhhhhh! Check, please. Ehhhhhh! Good morning! Ehhhhhh! Gemma-sensei."

Feeling crisp - Nov. 18

Hues of orange, red and bright yellow now paint the rolling hills near my neighbourhood. The trees are in undergoing an amazing autumnal transformation, but I can feel the impending snow. My little car wove through the paved roads amidst the rice fields below on my way to school this morning. Yet another crisp autumn day in Motomiya. It is November. Not a trace of snow to be found, but that looming chill in the air foreshadows what's to come.

This morning's drive into work stirred up some feelings of nostalgia. Back home, we have a few trees at our house. The biggest one is a maple tree that has graced our backyard for 26 years or more. The roots are slowly creeping towards the house, so Dad's slowly been cutting it down. Anyways, seeing the trees in Motomiya reminded me that some things never change... I can escape to a land far away, but signifiers of home will always be around to comfort me. Surprisingly, I haven't been faced with profound waves of homesickness, because I've been having way too much fun. (I did hear the kiddos playing Pomp and Circumstace in the gym, which reminded be that my brother is going to graduate in a year and a half. Time flies.)

I've also been busy with tons of little challenges, mostly due to language barriers. I often feel like I'm in an extended game of "Telephone," because I rely on so many people to translate from English into Japanese for me. I've got the textbooks, some flashcards and so on as study aids... but the language isn't sticking into my brain. I've also asked my students to teach me some Japanese, which is pretty funny.

At shogakko (elementary school) today, my kids and I were bonding over writing in foreign languages. They painstainkingly wrote their names out in romaji (romanized letters) for me, while I penned my name in mediocre katakana. (ジエマ). The fifth-graders did something immensely sweet for me! Apparently, they stayed after school and drew a poster for me, outlining the hiragana and katakana syllabary. (That is, they wrote out all the Japanese characters for me so that I could practice).

I almost melted on the spot. They even included the romaji translations, aw... I'm such a sap, I know. But seriously, elementary school kiddos are way too cute. Sure, they have snotty noses and insist on grabbing your hands... but their cuteness factor trumps all. We played Duck, Duck, Goose during recess. Yup, this is my job. :)

For the love of English

I'm stuck at home with a sore throat, but luckily I'm huddled under my wonderful kotatsu table. (That is, a low coffee table with a heater stuck on its underside. It's covered by my pink kotatsu blanket, so the heat is trapped under the space. Like many other JETs, I am in love with my kotatsu table. I have been whining about the cold for the past few weeks, so I'm glad I finally caved and bought a kotatsu. Anyways).

So, I'm spending my weekend in Motomiya for the first time in a while.

With all this free time, I decided to break out my worksheets and do some correcting. Some of the stuff I've read in their assignments and in-class cracks me up, so I wanted to share it with you.

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In one of our classes, the students had to interview their teachers and translate their answers into English. The art teacher inserted a couple witty comments. Here's what the first-year students had to say about him.

1. He teaches fine arts.
2. His favourite colour is the rainbow.
3. He speaks English. (Bless his heart, but he doesn't! haha)
4. He lives in Fukushima.
5. He likes drinking.
6. He likes basketball.
7. He teaches moral education. (Really?)

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Hmm... for my second-graders, we wanted to teach them the meaning behind the word "because." So, my JTE designed a lesson with the theme "Let's find Gemma-sensei a boyfriend." Basically, he would put up photos of dudes and I'd say "Oh, I like that guy BECAUSE he is blond/American/he has a mustache..." One of my potential boyfriend candidates included a photo of my JTE... awkward?! My pred says the JTE thinks it's pure hilarity.

The next day, I noticed on one of the blackboards that a student had scrawled something in English: "Girl, I'll be your boyfreind." Amazing.

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Yesterday, one of my funny third-graders kept asking me how to spell "crap." He even looked it up in the dictionary, but to no avail. "Gemma-sensei, is it "c-l-a-p?" He tried really hard.

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One of the first-grade teachers found my pen, and presented it to me while yelling "LOOK! NO CAP! NO CAP!" He was so proud that he could utter those words in English for me. He is seriously one of my favourites. At the last matsuri, he even offered me free yakisoba (dericious noodles) from his booth.

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One of my ichi-nensei girls scrawled "I love you" on a small scrap of paper, then handed it over to me. She's such a sweetie! And she wrote a follow-up letter, saying she didn't know how to write in English, but would try very hard. Kawaii ne!

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Little nuggets of such sweetness and hilarity make school life interesting. Jya ne...