Sensei Desu

Being a teacher is very neat. The first week was pretty surreal. "So that's what being a teacher is like..."

I spent two days observing classes, where I saw different teaching styles, different ages being taught, and different methods. It all seemed pretty straightforwards, but what I really needed was practice. My notes from my TESOL course happened to be in my notebook, which saved me really - I had an example lesson plan that came in very useful on my first day. I arrived very early. Shiomi was observing my classes, which I hadn't known about, and made me even more nervous; however, I was able to forget she was there, and focus instead on the problems I was having. I managed to get through the first week with only a few mishaps. The next week was even better, but then I got tossed a few classes that Adrian usually has, as he asked for the day off. Being a substitute teacher is not fun. My regular classes had improved for two reasons: I knew what my students were like and could teach accordingly, and I had learned how to prepare a lesson. I could prepare the lessons for my classes, but I had no idea what to expect from the students. It was my first unhappy experience as a teacher. Tough I had had, unusual circumstances like teacher a toddler and teaching an old man, but Saturday was Not Fun. Fortunately, the rest of my day was saved when I remembered a quote from Nathan Fillion that I had seen, coincidentally, on a colleague and co-worker's facebook page - "One day, I was unhappy. Then I stopped being unhappy, and started being awesome. True story."

My most difficult class is a kids class, where the students are old enough that they don't enjoy flash card games, but not old enough to have a very large command of English. I think, however, I have solved that problem - I have modified battleship, and another teacher had very valuable suggestions. My most favorite class is a beginner English class for High School students. Not sure why. Probably because I can see their personalities the best.

So far I have had given to me a drawing of a person by one of my youngest students - apparently he made it because he thought he wasn't very good at english, and when he gave it to me he said 'here is my best!' So cute; and a set of sticks carved by one of my retired students for eating 'japanese cake' - ocha flavor, or green tea. A set of 6 smaller sticks, for eating the cake from your plate; and a pair of chopsticks, not for eating with but for putting the cake from the sharing plate into your own bowl.

The students have been a wealth of information about places to go in Japan and in Tendo, the city I will be moving to in January. My favorite part of the intermediate classes is when we have discussions pertaining to everyday life, rather than following the syllabus.

Overall, aside from the difficulties of being a substitute teacher, and learning how to be a teacher in general, I enjoy it very much. And the more I teach, the better I get, and the better I get, the easier it is - pretty soon, substituting won't bother me, because I'll have experienced and be prepared for most contingencies. My lesson preparation time has gone from half an hour a class to an average of 10 minutes. It always amuses me that when learning different languages, you learn all sorts of things that native speakers of the laguage in general don't know. The best way to learn something is indeed to teach it - can you tell me what present perfect vs. simple past is?