Yesterday was a good day….a really good day….and then within an hour I was wondering what the heck is the purpose in my life over here. My life is ups and downs over here, and sometimes those ups and downs happen in the same day.
Yesterday started off swell. I went to nursery school, and we had coloring day. I just taught them numbers and colors, so I gave them a color-by-number picture. Most of them were able to finish it within the thirty minute class and were absolutely precious doing so! For the most part I stayed in the back of class monitoring the crayons and asking which color they needed when they came back to trade out colors. If they gave me a Japanese response, I wouldn’t let them get a new color until they could tell me what color they needed in English. 
Learning=fun! Once kids finished, I signed their coloring sheets. They were so amazed to see my signature!
After nursery school, I was off to the JHS. I had two classes yesterday. One was my 2-2 class, and the other was 3-1. My 2-2 class was structured exactly like Monday in which we played review games. My kids were actually trying, and it was fun! My favorite response of the day was to the question “What is your hobby?” in which the student responded “Sleeping.” I laughed at that one! Everyone was happy in class, and I walked out of the classroom feeling like I had made a difference. Learning=fun!
Next up was lunch time. Lunch time can either go really well or……. Yesterday it went splendidly! I ate with 1-1, and we had a pretty good conversation. Even though a lot of the conversation was in gestures and hand signals, everyone had a good laugh, and it was fun. I wish every lunch would be as awesome as that one!
Then finally the last class period of the day was my 3-1 class. I dislike my 3-1 class. I actually like most of the students, but it only takes a few apples to spoil the barrel. Also, it’s my largest class. There’s a total of forty students crammed into one room (because Japan is a group based society and thinks that larger class sizes are better. If the class goes over forty, it is separated into two sections like my 2-1 and 2-1 classes.) I ate lunch with the 3-1 class on Monday, and it wasn’t too bad, so I thought that maybe (just maybe) this semester was going to be different.
It only takes a couple of disruptive characters to create chaos, which is exactly what happened yesterday. The class started out with a simple review game, but everyone was so talkative and active that I had to nearly shout the instructions. It only got worse. With thirty minutes to go, the lesson was over, and Mr. Fujiwara assigned them to work quietly in their workbooks. This was anything BUT quiet. Only a few students were actually doing as told, and the others were copying the answers from friends or out of the back of the book, talking loudly to neighbors, turning around and irritating neighbors, and basically doing anything BUT their work. (I want to be fair to the students who were actually doing the assignment. There were a few. One girl actually called me over to help her. This NEVER happens since most Japanese students are too shy to ask for help, so I was very excited about that!) Generally when the students work on workbooks, I walk around the classroom and help the students who made mistakes, say “good job!” to the students who have several sentences in a row correct, and wake up the sleepy heads. Yesterday I felt like a zoo keeper. I was standing in between boys telling them to quit talking, grabbing wads of paper so that they wouldn’t go flying across the room, constantly telling students to turn around and work, and blatantly standing beside certain students so that they wouldn’t copy answers. Whenever I’d stop to help some of the problem students, they would just mock me. I don’t know what they were saying, but I could tell….I could just tell. I’m pretty sure that (in true pubescent fashion) they were making some sexual references as well. All of this madness lasted for THE. REST. OF. THE. PERIOD.
So where was my JTE in all of this? At the front of the room grading workbooks. He would occasionally tell them to quiet down, but honestly, I was surprised that he didn’t do more. I was sooooo incredibly frustrated after that class. The students didn’t seem to care. My JTE didn’t seem to care. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE HERE IF NO ONE CARES ABOUT LEARNING ENGLISH!??!!?!? UGH!! WHY AM I HERE?!?! That was definitely a low point for me, and I was glad that there was only thirty minutes left in my day so that I could go home and not think about it.
It absolutely amazes me how it only took one fifty minute period to go from happy to frustrated beyond belief. However one good thing about having moments like that is that I know there’s only one way to go from there….up! For example, today was elementary day! I haven’t had an elementary day in which school was in session in two months, so it was a joy to see all of the cute kids again and have them tug, pull, and tickle me. They’re always just so happy to see me, which in turn makes me absolutely delighted to be here!
So I read your blog about being frustrated with kids not wanting to learn English. Let me just tell you, that is a worldwide issue with all foreign languages. You wouldn't believe how often I hear my middle school kids say " I don't need to know Spanish, this is dumb" and treat Spanish class like a joke. But I try to look at the positive and focus on those kids that do want to learn, because when you're positive and excited, they are too and it's contagious. I can only imagine how hard it would be to manage a class with that many kids and in a language I'm not familiar with. The only thing I can suggest is really evil looks to the jokesters and praising the good, if you get enough positive students on your side, it'll all be easy from there! Sounds like you're doing awesome though! Message me sometime and we can exchange notes on some lesson planning for various topics!
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