This last week at work was a "Set Working Day" (SWD) week. Which meant no group lessons. Since it is the middle of summer break season, our students are out of school and therefore have more time to take extra private lessons (seminars) with us! So it was a week of only private lessons, extra seminars, and lot of cancellations from students out on vacation. Additionally, since I am new I don't really have many seminars. I wasn't around to promote myself, and Sara couldn't promote people to sign up for seminars with a complete stranger... Basically it was a painfully slow week, that had its ups and downs...
Pros to SWDs:
- Lots of free time meant I had plenty of time for lesson planning. I had that freak out moment last week and learned how to power through some lesson plans. Now this week with all my free time I ended up ending the week with my entire week of lesson plans (for this coming week) complete
- Again I had a LOT of free time. So I had time to read all my training material on different games you can play in the classroom to reinforce what you've just taught. I picked a bunch that I liked. And then made the props for one for each major age group (toddlers, elementry school, jr. high and bilingual). It was fun getting to cut and color and draw and make all these new game props.
-Time to get organized. I went through the NET supply closet and got more familiar with what was now mine and where everything was. I reorganized the books so that in the 5min transition I have between classes, I will have an easier time finding the right ones. I also have two baskets that I take to class, one for my floor classes (Baby - P3[toddler]), and one for all my table classes. I went through and reorganized those, exploring what props for games that I had and could utilize, and threw away all the useless stuff. I found that I had a lot of really good stuff for my floor classes! I need to bulk up my props for the older kids.
Cons to SWDs:
-I HAD TOO MUCH FREE TIME! Even with all the things that I ended up accomplishing, it wasn't really enough to fill the 2-3 hour gaps I was now finding in my working hours. And yet I am expected to always look busy. Especially since my spot in the back room makes me the first thing parents see when they walk into the school. I would read and re-read training material to try and eat up time. I found myself falling asleep at the desk pretty much every afternoon that week.
-I've planned all of my lesson plans for the next week. So now what am I to do with the time I have in my schedule for lesson planning? Well I guess I can just continue to be a week ahead with my lesson plans... or make more props.
-I left work too early. It is expected in Japan that you always come to work 15-20min early and stay 15-20min late. But when I had nothing to do for the last hour or more of my day, then there really is no reason for me to stay late. After your last class you are expected to complete your cleaning duties (your work area, a classroom, and one of the general areas assigned to you that week) and then you can leave. I always do my cleaning duties, and then help the JTs out by straitening up their rooms as well, so that they only need to clean the floor and/or wipe down the tables. But when I have all that time at the end of my day, my cleaning gets done early. The JTs get out of thier final class and I do a quick run through and I am out 5min after the hour. I guess I could have sat around for another 10-15min, but I literally had nothing to do to make myself look busy. I would just be in the way... so I left.
All in all it was a good week though. Remember tantrum girl? she still hasn't come back. Her mom assured Manager that they would try, but no dice. And suddenly I have another student who was doing really well, who didn't want to come to class this week. She sat in the car and refused. Also, my only adult student, quit at the end of last month, after one class with me. Finally, my favorite student that I had really bonded with in our 3 short classes also quit Amity this week. I only know for sure that the first one (tantrum girl) is because of me, and the last one isn't, but its hard to not take it personally with all of them. Am I that intimidating? Am I a bad teacher? What did i do to scare them off?
My other classes are going pretty well though. I enjoy private lessons because you really get to know your student. But the group lessons are more fun because you can do more with competitive games. There were two seminars that I did with these sisters who had never taken a NET class before, that went amazing! The girls were so fun and cute! I played with them in the lobby afterwards and really won them over. Hopefully I can get two new regular students out of them. In the lobby I taught them some tongue twisters. I've actually taken to doing that with all of my table private lessons if we get through everything I planned too quickly. Its a great way to teach American English pronunciation. I've started with "Red leather, yellow leather" said 3x fast and "She sells sea shells by the sea shore." These are REALLY hard for Japanese speakers because they don't have the "th" sound or the "see" sound in their language. They come out sounding like "Red lesure, yellow lesure" and "she shells she shells by the she shore." its actually pretty funny, and endearing. The other thing I taught the girls in the lobby was a simple hand jive that they could play with each other at home. Hopefully I can play more lobby games like this with students in the future. There was one poor boy in the lobby for almost an hour looking very bored while I was in the back pretending to look busy, he wasn't a student of mine or anything, but I felt for him. So I went to the supply closet and grabbed my jenga game. I introduced myself and we played. It was simple, and fun and kept him entertained. It was nice.
I have other set of sisters that are my regular students. I have their private lessons back to back, and their dad is fluent in English, though I think talking to me is the only real practice he gets. He is super intimidating and invested in his children's education. He is clearly a great day and they really love and respect him, I can see it in the way their interact. But then he turned his serious face on and asked for some extra time to talk to me about his daughter's education. Basically he wants them to sound American. He doen't care about lesson plan calendar that I am supposed to follow or anything like that, he just wants natural speaking ability. After that conversation he has been nothing but delightful, but I really feel the pressure to help these girls with their pronunciation. I cannot let Super Dad down!
So enough about work, lets talk about my weekend. It was an amazing weekend! Every Saturday night after work Briana and I go do something. This Saturday we went to near by Gifu City for dinner and drinks. On our way to the station, however, we discovered a huge festival on Ogaki's main street. It was pretty cool, but we didn't stay long (too hungry). Gifu was really nice. There was a festival happening somewhere there as well, though we never found it. Briana took me to a nice pizza place where they stove top cook the pizzas and finish it off with a blow torch! I am going to take a video next time. It was delicious. Afterwards we went to a really popular bar with import drinks (American and European liquor and beers). It was a lively atmosphere! But we didn't stay too long. I will definitely be back though. Afterwards we ended up at the local bar on Ogaki's main street that we go to literally every weekend. Miroku! Its my favorite little place. We know all the bar tenders and some of the other regulars by name. Its really fun. When one of the bartenders quit, Briana even wrote him a long letter. Normally its a very chill atmosphere, where we sit back, chat, and make new friends at the bar over a few drinks. But this night was different, we ran into four foreign guys (a Canadian, an Englishman, an Irishman, and another American) who also live in Ogaki and are English teachers. I was so shocked! I mean... I know there are a lot of other companies that bring English speakers to Japan to teach, but for some reason I thought Briana and I were the only ones in Ogaki. Apparently they come to Miroku fairly often, but always a lot later in the night, after Briana and I have called it a night. We talked, had a good time. Some drunk Japanese guys decided to talk to us and that's when things got weird...
Briana was at the bar with the Irish guy, and I was sitting on some couches with the others. The conversation started normal, talking about Star Wars and famous people and what not, but then somehow the conversation turned to porn and masturbation. I awkwardly laughed thinking these guys were joking, or trying to teach us dirty words in Japan. But then one guy apparently got upset for me laughing at him. The questions got more personal, and us Gaijin (non Japanese) got really uncomfortable. I excused myself from the conversation pretty quickly. Later I found myself cornered at the bar by one of those Japanese guys. Again the conversation started normal, we talked about travel and languages. He asked if its true that Americans hug each other often (physical contact among adults, even those that are romantically involved, is largely non existent) and I assured him that its true. So of course he asked for a hug, which I gave a quick one armed one. Then he asked if its true that we kiss, and I quickly said NO. At this point I tried to weasel my way into Briana and the Irishman's conversation (he was steady trying to get her number) but it didn't work out and I was forced back to Nao, the increasingly annoying Japanese guy. OJ, the other American, was also there, so i kept trying to bring him into the conversation. Nao asked me to go for a walk alone with him, which I refused. He then gave made an open invitation to him home, which I was noncommital about. Thankfully not long after that his friends decided that they were ready to leave and he was gone. Then our new foreigner friends left. Briana and I had a "WTH just happened?!" moment, and they we headed home as well.
Sunday afternoon was spent lunching and shopping with Briana. Later that night we got back together to return to Miroku. We were both hoping to run into the Gaijin guys again. Instead we made some new friends. Ryo, the newest bartender at Miroku, introduced us to his sister, and we talked with her for a bit. She was super cute. I hope we get to see her more often. There was a man at the bar, Hiro, who spoke pretty good English. So we talked with him and Ryo and the head bartender Yuta for most of the night. Hiro translated, which was really annoying for me, but really helpful for Briana who doesn't know any Japanese. We talked about all different kinds of things, but it ended with the revelation that Briana has a crush on Yuta. Well, all the other bartenders knew, we had talked to them about it before, so its pretty safe to assume he already knew. But now here they were talking about it face to face for the first time (with a translator). Yuta was trying to assure Briana that he is no good for her and that she should forget about him, but Briana was insistent that she didn't care. However there are two things keeping them apart; they both are dating someone else, and they can barely speak two words of each other's language. All in all it was an interesting night. Ryo and I bonded over the fact that we both play drums. We even discovered that Taisei, the third and final bartender, lives above the bar. That explains why we would ALWAYS see him there, even though he wasn't working, he was simply coming or leaving home.
Then the rain started... I had to ride my bike home in the rain, awkwardly holding my handlebar and umbrella at the same time. It stormed all day today (Monday) so I haven't been outside. I spent a very relaxing day reading and surfing the internet. Back to work tomorrow, and its a normal work week. After the laid-back-ness of last week it will be a bit of a shock to my system. But this is the last week before a nine day summer vacation. So there's that...
That's all from me for now. Thanks for reading!
まったね！
～寒
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