“High” School Teaching
I like this title because the whole meaning can change depending on your intonation - you could understand it as teaching at a School while being under the influence of some mind-warping chemical. Fortunately perhaps, that is not what I am doing. I have though changed my job and am now teaching at a High School in Nagoya. I won’t tell you the name in case you know it and decide to send your kids somewhere else…
But joking apart, teaching in a High School is very different to teaching at an Eikaiwa school, but also interesting and challenging in its own way. The first major difference is class size: previously I had been teaching classes of no more than 6 students, but now I’m standing in front of 16 or so. This is still a very small number for a High School, but the place I am working at now has a special English program that aims to maximise student contact time with native speaker teachers.
The students are really of all types - ranging from very studious through very lazy and on to nearly impossible to teach. No malicious delinquents though, I am happy to say. It’s a challenge to help those who want to study and to encourage those who don’t that it might be worth their while after all. After 2 weeks in the job there is not a great deal I can say, but that I’m giving it my best shot.
I studied fairly seriously when I was at High School (or Sixth Form as we call it in the UK) and so kind of expect my students to do the same. It’s not all so serious though. For in Japan, wherever they may be, Western natives are welcomed with curiosity and gestures of friendship. And the High School is not much different - the students are keen to talk with us and, in the case of the girls anyway, take endless pictures of us with their mobile phones.
I don’t feel as passionate about teaching English as I do about learning languages myself, but I do have a desire to pass on to other people the pleasure that mastering a language to some degree can bring. All I hope is that I can achieve that in my present school by teaching lessons that the students find interesting and useful, without having to resort to mind-warping chemicals…
[PS. No audio this time - err.... can't be bothered to record myself saying what I've just written.]
Enoshima wrote:
Thank you for letting us know how your current job is like. It’s interesting to hear ALT’s 感想 and thoughts about Japanese school.
また、聞かせてくださいね。
Posted on 20-Sep-07 at 11:25 pm | Permalink
ben wrote:
Thanks Enoshima-san. By the way, I should perhaps clarify that I am not an ALT. I am a full-time homeroom teacher with full responsibility for curriculum and teaching and marking, etc.. I think ALT work is very different to what I am doing now - I am actually trusted to be a teacher in my own right, whereas ALT’s generally are not.
Posted on 21-Sep-07 at 7:59 am | Permalink
bamboo4 wrote:
Interesting! I envy your students who have the chance of learning and studying English under a teacher like you. Even though I am envious, I cannot really picture the scene because I never had formal education in terms of English, and mine was all street learning very frequently interlaced with four-letter words as I had to learn English as part of the efforts to make my living.
Well, that was a long time ago and my learning and studying process for many years in the past generally has been to polish up and add whatever I can to my knowledge pool.
In retrospect, I am not sure if I would want to relive that experience, but there were a few friends who went out of their ways to help me out in a more or less unfriendly environment in which I worked. Those ephemeral friends, who came and went, left deep impression in my mind and they were very much conducive in kindling my interest in English and in maintaining that interest to this day.
In my mind, I always held it as sort of an idealtype to sit in a high school or college classroom to listen to the teacher elucidating on esoteric grammar rules since I do not know ape s*** about English grammar and I operate mostly on gut reaction. Thus, my envy about your students getting proper understanding through your teaching efforts not only of language itself but also the cultural background on which grammar rules are built up.
My best wishes for your new career and here’s my earnest hope that you get your unique experience in not only teaching but in building the best curriculum for your students such that they remember you for many years to come.
Posted on 21-Sep-07 at 9:06 pm | Permalink
Enoshima wrote:
OK, I see. Actually, when I wrote the last post, I was wondering for a while that what expression I should use, because an ALT was an Assistant. I didn’t think of any alternative words. Do you have a homeroom? That’s great!
Posted on 22-Sep-07 at 2:16 pm | Permalink