Quickly checking in

Well, I've gotten bad about keeping up with this blog. Partly, though, there hasn't been that much to tell. The first few months I was doing a lot of exciting new things, but then winter came and I settled into my routine, and I don't think anyone really wants to hear about how I got up, had breakfast, went to work, came home, made dinner and went to sleep. 

It's almost spring here. It's kind of battling its way in. We keep having these infuriatingly spring-like days that turn into snowstorms or rainstorms, and then it plunges back into winter. But it's getting there. March is the end of the school year in Japan, and the 3rd years are graduating, in about 2 weeks actually. Then the other students finish at the end of March. We get two weeks of spring break, then the new year starts in April. There will be a whole new class of 1st years coming in. I know most of them already, because I teach at the two elementary schools that feed into my JHS. So I'm hoping that will be a plus.

There really isn't very much going on for me to write about. Since it's been so cold, no one has been really up for traveling. Hopefully we'll start traveling again in March as it warms up, so I will have some interesting stories to tell. 

Well, this was a thoroughly uninteresting post. Sorry. 

The Miriam Times Issues 1-13

A couple people asked to see the Miriam Times, the newspaper I put out every week for my students. Here are links for all the issues so far. Enjoy!

MT 1

MT 2

MT 3

MT 4

MT 5

MT 6

MT 7

MT 8

MT 9

MT 10

MT 11

MT 12

MT 13

And now I've come full circle

I think I just had an epiphany, but not necessarily the good kind. All this time, I've been thinking that the lack of classes where I'm actually doing constructive communicative activities with the students was my fault, that I didn't know how to plan, or I wasn't taken advantage of the times when I was allowed to contribute to planning the lesson. But now, as we are nearing the end of year exams, I realized something. It was like making a connection where before there was a huge disconnect, and suddenly the light came on. 

The teachers here don't want the kids doing constructive, communication-based activities. All along I've been thinking they wanted them to, but didn't know how or were worried it would make the class unmanageable. Now I see I was wrong. They want to kids to pass their exams. That's all. They want them to learn Testing English, they don't want them to learn Actual English. I'm kind of stuck in a corner, because the English teachers tell me what kind of lessons to plan, and that doesn't give me much leeway. The worst part of that is, they always tell me to prepare the same kind of lessons: listening practice and reading practice, or worse, the dreaded, asinine wordsearch. That the teachers only care about the testing was the first part of the epiphany. The part that hit me like a bucket of ice water was when I realized that if that is all they want, then I really serve absolutely no purpose with my presence here. If all they want is for the students to learn grammar, the English teachers are perfectly capable of teaching that themselves. What JETs provide is the other component, natural English communication, and an ability to actually speak the language. THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE JET PROGRAM. In typical Japanese fashion, they have set up a system whereby they say one thing on the outside (we want our students to actually be able to speak English, not just learn the grammar), but then do something completely different in reality (like focus on testing and ignore the communication part). 

For some reason, this reality just solidified in my mind today. The students have tests next week, so I'm going to the third year class on Monday, and I assumed I'd me preparing a review of some sort for the students. Nope. I've been asked to prepare listening practice and reading practice. That's all. I understand because they have a test coming up that those become the priorities. But this is always how it is. 

While it's a bit comforting to know it is not entirely due to my failing that we never do communicative activities in class, it is also incredibly frustrating to realize that because a component of it is out of my control, there's not much I can do to fix it. All along I've felt like the English teachers and I were kind of in the same boat. I've been struggling trying to figure out what I was doing wrong in terms of planning effective lessons. I thought it was my fault, my inexperience. But today I began to see the situation as me battling furiously against the current (trying to bring effective communicative activities to the classroom) while the English teachers threw up roadblocks every step of the way. They never give me the opportunity to bring anything constructive to the classes. They do, but within the narrow confines of the type of activities they want. The few times I managed to force a few (slightly more) communicative activities into the classes, I felt like I was slipping one in the back door, manipulating and circumventing the JTEs. I felt sneaky. And I shouldn't feel that way, since it's my job.

It seems like everyone and everything is working against the students actually learning English. The first years are apparently complaining about the younger JTE. They say she doesn't explain the grammar in a way they understand, they play too many games in class, and she does inappropriate things like show her wedding pictures during class (it was a little booklet, and she passed it around while they were working silently in their workbooks, and many of the girls were really excited about it). I don't know how many students are complaining, but it can't be that many. In any case, the students never speak up and say when they don't understand something. When you ask them "do you understand?" you are met with blank stares. No one says anything. Of course, I'm hearing all this criticism from the other JTE, who heard it from the vice-principal, who heard if from the parents, who heard it from the kids. So that, plus the language barrier, and I'm not sure how accurate a representation I'm seeing. But it really pisses me off. The "games" the first year teacher uses in class are what I would call closer to communicative activities, the point being to get the kids' noses out of the books and have them actually speak English. But they don't seem to like that or think it's worthwhile, because it isn't directly leading to passing a test. The worst part is, I know exactly what they're feeling because I was that student in junior high. I didn't see the value of immersion in French class. I got angry because I didn't understand, and I lashed out at my teacher because of it. Now years later, and after having had much more experience with language learning, I realize there is a huge difference between "learning a language" and  "learning a language for academic purposes." They are completely different things. In the short run, getting these students through their tests is the goal. That is the teachers' job. In the long run, getting the Japanese population to be able to speak better English is the goal. That is the government's job. That's why they hired the JETs. BUT. But but but but BUT.... this puts the teachers' goal and the government/JETs' goal completely at odds, and makes my life a living hell.

This is the closest I've been to completely losing it at school since September.

Obama-mania hits Japan

Watch this.

Obama-mania

Photos for the day

I know he's out of office (finally!) but that doesn't make these pictures I found today any less hilarious or, sometimes, inexplicable. Please enjoy ;)

Also this one, because after all this blog is about Japan:

Success!

For my lesson yesterday with the third years, my JTE asked me to prepare a listening activity on Obama. Normally when we do listening activities, it's me reading from a script and the students filling in the blanks on a worksheet. Which is fine for listening practice (although not really, because it's completely superficial and in no way real life listening experience). But at the conference in Kobe last week they were talking about communicative English teaching, and how you have to incorporate reading, writing, speaking and listening to make a good communicative activity. The benefit of having an ALT in the classroom is that we are native speakers and can help with speaking and listening exercises. But I haven't been doing much of that lately. The kids hardly ever speak in class, because we haven't facilitated it though activities.

So yesterday before class, I was preparing my script as usual ("Obama is from Hawaii. He is 47 years old" etc.) when it occurred to me that this could be turned into a perfect "communicative activity." Instead of having the kids listen and fill in the blanks on a worksheet, I would read the script, and they would have to take notes, and then get into groups and write a summary of what I had said. I proposed this to my JTE. She seemed really skeptical, like she wanted to say no but was too non-confrontational to do so. I almost backed down. In typical Miriam fashion, I started to quail under even the slightest resistance (and it was pretty slight). Normally my justification for backing down is that someone else must know more than me, and if a superior disagrees with me, my idea will probably fail. But this time I forced myself to trust my instinct. I definitely thought the kids could do this, even if my JTE thought it was too hard. They're going to be in high school next year, it's time to challenge them a little. It drives me crazy how they don't have to work for things in English class. The answers are handed to them. With this activity, I wanted them to have to dig in and really listen to English with no help, then compose thoughts in English.

So we did the activity. I read the script, and the kids took notes, and we broke them into groups. Each group (in theory at least) had one leader, one recorded and one presenter. During class there were a few times where I had to stand up to my JTE as she tried to simplify the activity. At one point, she asked me if it was ok for the kids to just say words, like "47" instead of "He is 47 years old." Which completely defeats the purpose of the activity, to compose real English sentences. She really thought this was too hard an activity for them. If anything, I think it is just at their level. With this kind of attitude, it's no wonder why the kids can only speak English is single words. ("Pen." "Pen what?" "Please." "Please what?" "Please pen." "May I please have a pen?" "Yes." I can't tell you how many times I've had this conversation. You see why I'm bowled over every time my speech contest student speaks to me in complete sentences).

The kids did very well. I think the lesson was a success. I want to do more lessons like that. And the best part was, after it was over, my JTE turned to me and said "I was surprised, they could do it!" I kind of wanted to throttle her (partly in amusement) because of course they could do it! They're 15 years old, it's not going to kill them to be challenged a little. Instead of handing them the bar, how about setting it a little higher and making them reach for it? This is my goal for the rest of the school year. 

Craziness

Yesterday something strange happened. I had a panic attack. Not like a little one, a full-blown panic attack. I've had maybe two or three of those in my life, and this one came out of nowhere. I was in Japanese class, and my heart started fluttering, which it does fairly often, but it's never more than an annoyance, and it goes away. But yesterday during class it wasn't going away, and I started having trouble breathing. I got dizzy and I had to excuse myself. I went into the stairwell and put my head down, and I had to cover my ears because all the noise of the different conversations in the classroom was making me crazy. After a few minutes I tried to go back to class, but I was still dizzy and my head was pounding and being in the classroom was so noisy and overwhelming that I had to go back to the stairwell. I was shaking, and for absolutely no reason I started crying. There was nothing to trigger it, I wasn't upset about anything. It was like I had suddenly lost control of my body and my emotions, which was frightening. I've never shaken so uncontrollably in my life. I think it kind of became a cycle, and I finally had to haul myself out of it and go back to class, even though my head was spinning, and force myself to try to calm down and sit through the rest of class. 

I was thinking about it today, what might have brought it on, when there was nothing overt to really cause a panic attack, especially one of that magnitude (the only other time I can remember feeling like that was during finals Freshman year, and even then it wasn't this bad). Yesterday I came back to school after the JET Midyear Conference in Kobe and had a new sense of purpose. I'm really trying to improve my work life, and overhaul the bad habits I've fallen into, because I definitely fell into a comfort zone last semester, and I'm not putting enough effort into my job. So yesterday went well in that respect. But I think the emotional strain of forcing myself out of my comfortable routine, and the intense fear of failing to better my work situation (which I'm unhappy with right now) may have all come to a head yesterday. 

Actually, I want to clarify that. I am re-contracting for next year, no question. I like my life here, even when there are challenges. The biggest enemy I'm fighting right now is not culture shock or the Japanese winter (although the no central heating is a bitch). My biggest enemy right now, or I guess, rather, the biggest challenge, is my expectations of myself and what I can realistically achieve. I was so frustrated last term when I came up against the reality of my job as compared to the expectations I had, and as a result of my disappointed idealism, I fell into an apathetic rut. Now I'm trying to correct that. By far the hardest thing about being here is this job. But that doesn't make me want to leave. It makes me want to stay and keep working at it until I can do it well. I've never been faced with something like this: a job at which I feel like I'm failing. As a students, I always knew how I was doing, and because I knew how to be a student and worked hard, I was always doing well. But here, I have no idea how to be a teacher, much less one of a language I have no qualifications to teach in a country where I don't understand the language, the school system or the culture. It is incredibly frustrating, not to mention thankless, teaching junior high. With elementary schoolers, you know you've done well if the kids are having fun playing a game you made. Then it feels worthwhile. But junior high schoolers wouldn't be caught dead showing they were having fun. So you spend hours planning an activity, and making props and questions and lesson plans, and then, if (it's a big if) you actually manage to get them to do the activity, which is a feat in and of itself (you don't know how many times we've had to scrap an activity in the middle of class and give the kids word searches just to get them under control), you have no idea how effective it was, because they all look like they'd rather be having root canal surgery.

There's this, plus I've been stressing about the fact that I haven't been studying Japanese AT ALL. I had all these plans, and I do have time, if I use it effectively, but I haven't been, and I actually feel like my ability to speak Japanese has decreased in the last few months. Again, disappointed expectations of myself.

So when I said nothing brought on the panic attack, I take it back. Seemingly nothing brought it on, but in hindsight I guess the stress had been building up for a while before the cacophony and frustration of Japanese class pulled the trigger. But it caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting it. Though it may not have been completely emotional. I'm still dizzy today and I think I might be getting sick. Really hoping it's not the flu, it's going around, a lot of the students are sick.