As the whole JET thing
doesn't really get going till July, I'm going to talk about what I am
doing to pass the time. One day soon I will be faced with a sea of
Japanese school children, the names of which I will have no hope of
remembering. For now I'm making do with teaching adults. I don't
remember half their names either - not because I don’t care – I'm
just really bad with names.
Zoos
So I started as a
volunteer teaching assistant in January, which coincidentally gave me
some experience to talk about in my JET interview. At first my
motivation was purely selfish, but I've stayed on after getting a
placement because I'm really starting to enjoy it. The focus is less
on grammar and more on 'life skills', so I spend the first hour of
each lesson just chatting to people about their week. I am now
excellent at small talk. The students are incredibly motivated immigrants who are trying to either get out of factory work or be able to talk to their children in English. The
majority come straight from the fish factory to learn English for two
hours in evening classes, or are on the night shift and get one or
two hours sleep before dragging themselves to day classes. Which
makes me feel even guiltier when I show up five minutes late for a
12:30 class because I overslept.
I have begun to develop
favorites - the grey-haired Bangladeshi man in my Tuesday class takes
top spot. He was the only male in a class of 20, so when I arrived he
was overjoyed at having some backup. The first time I met him he
tried to bribe me with home cooked curry into giving him some private
tutoring. He always calls me sir, and is willing to interrupt any
conversation with his opinion about the decreasing fish stocks in the
rivers of Bangladesh. His wife is also in the class. They regularly
argue in Bengali while the class continues around them. He cannot
pronounce 'Z's, which led to the most awkward teaching moment to date
when he announced that he hated Jews.
Division
Division
I have also picked up a
real paying job that pays real money. It's two days a week for
minimum wage, but I'm not picky. I was lured in with promises of
English tutoring, but spend almost all my time marking maths papers.
The learners are job seekers trying to get GCSE Maths and English
equivalents. Sometimes (for instance when a student cannot
conceptualize division or negative numbers) it is possibly the
hardest job in the world. Because although you can make 12 little
bits of paper and split them up into 4 piles of three, it becomes a
bit more difficult with 1000 ÷
5. There just isn't enough time or paper.
As
for my leisure time I have managed to 'borrow' someone else's Netflix
account, and Season 2 of Orange
is the New Black
just got added. Who needs weekend plans? Might take a bath. I don't
know if I'll have one in Japan, so I've been taking long ones daily
just in case.
