Teachery Moment
Sometime soon I'll post about my cherry blossom adventures!
But first...
The new school year is finally finally here :)
In Japan, the school year ends in March and starts again in April. It's a really weird state of mind for those of us leaving in August. Since signing re-contracting/not re-contracting papers in February coincide with the slowing down of classes, exam periods, etc, I felt like I was inundated with the messages of LEAVING, FINISHING, GOING BACK, from my friends here, from my friends back home, teachers, and so on.
But to tell you the truth, I'm really not into that right now, because there's still a whole lot of teaching to get done and a whole lot of adventures to be had, and well...it really isn't all that close you know, and until I can really see leaving on the horizon (plane tickets bought, packing boxes, contacting my successor and working out that stuff), I can't really look forward to that yet. It's like thinking about the fall semester's classes when you still have midterms for spring semester.
So thankfully, the school year has begun again. And I decided to structure my classes a little bit more, basically skipping the "humbly ask the JTE to add this or that to our class" step and just going for the "this is my way and I know it means extra work but I want to do it" approach. I learned from last term, if I want more work, I have to make it happen for myself.
Anyway, that's the long way of saying that I gave little diaries to my class of 20 high school senior/3rd year girls. I got the idea from something that was already happening at my visit school that wasn't completely successful, so I revamped the idea for my regular school. And let me tell you, it's just really wonderful to read the little stories and introductions from each of the girls. It is definitely helping me remember their names better and I get to have individual conversations with them that might not usually happen in class.
So this is an entry that I read last Thursday. My heart just felt really heavy and proud at the same time. I thought back to the very first month I was in Japan, one of the first assignments I received was to read through the summer compositions that the 2nd graders wrote over summer vacation. I read over 200 compositions, some of them well-written, some of them difficult to understand. I remember quite a few, and helped one girl edit her composition for a contest, in which she was later chosen as a finalist.
But as much as I racked my brain, I couldn't really remember this specific composition. It was really heartwarming to read this, and though I can't remember exactly, I realized that that's part of being an in-flux teacher. It would probably be inhuman if I could remember every single teachery thing that I've done here.
The point is, and one of my JET friends put this so well and so simply, "See, that's the role of the ALT."
To encourage interest in English, to spark a desire to communicate with people...it was a good reminder of why I'm here and that there is actually meaning in what I do.
In Japan, the school year ends in March and starts again in April. It's a really weird state of mind for those of us leaving in August. Since signing re-contracting/not re-contracting papers in February coincide with the slowing down of classes, exam periods, etc, I felt like I was inundated with the messages of LEAVING, FINISHING, GOING BACK, from my friends here, from my friends back home, teachers, and so on.
But to tell you the truth, I'm really not into that right now, because there's still a whole lot of teaching to get done and a whole lot of adventures to be had, and well...it really isn't all that close you know, and until I can really see leaving on the horizon (plane tickets bought, packing boxes, contacting my successor and working out that stuff), I can't really look forward to that yet. It's like thinking about the fall semester's classes when you still have midterms for spring semester.
So thankfully, the school year has begun again. And I decided to structure my classes a little bit more, basically skipping the "humbly ask the JTE to add this or that to our class" step and just going for the "this is my way and I know it means extra work but I want to do it" approach. I learned from last term, if I want more work, I have to make it happen for myself.
Anyway, that's the long way of saying that I gave little diaries to my class of 20 high school senior/3rd year girls. I got the idea from something that was already happening at my visit school that wasn't completely successful, so I revamped the idea for my regular school. And let me tell you, it's just really wonderful to read the little stories and introductions from each of the girls. It is definitely helping me remember their names better and I get to have individual conversations with them that might not usually happen in class.
But as much as I racked my brain, I couldn't really remember this specific composition. It was really heartwarming to read this, and though I can't remember exactly, I realized that that's part of being an in-flux teacher. It would probably be inhuman if I could remember every single teachery thing that I've done here.
The point is, and one of my JET friends put this so well and so simply, "See, that's the role of the ALT."
To encourage interest in English, to spark a desire to communicate with people...it was a good reminder of why I'm here and that there is actually meaning in what I do.
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