5 hours of Japanese and a Sore Bum

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What has the world come to when playing Janken (Rock, Paper, Scissors) with a 5th grader is the highlight of your day?

Thoughts from earlier:

I came to a lesson observation today, thinking it would be an informal affair, watch a lesson, have a chat, go to school, plan lessons....but it was not so. Instead, I am now seated in a room with 50 other people, all of whom (myself included) are wearing identical brown guests' slippers. 95%!o(MISSING)f these people are native Japanese speakers.

Around 12pm M. sensei and I left our school for a place called Tsuchiyama, and we stopped off in Shigaraki (home of the creepy raccoon-dog sculptures and their namesakes the real, and slightly less creepy raccoon dogs themselves) and had some ramen (insert desired word here...unique? partial? only served in?) to that area, called "Menkiu Ramen". It was delicious.

I felt rather sleepy after the meal, and M. sensei confessed to feeling the same way so i promised that if he began to nod off i would prod him with my pen in a dignified and discreet manner. (Now that I know his true character, I cannot credit my earlier assumptions that he was a serious and scary individual, despite the dour expression he wore for the first few weeks...)

We watched 2 lessons at K. elementary school and the kids were great fun. The teachers encourages us native speakers to join in with some of the activities and i was playing Janken with some littlies and chanting English phrases along with them. This behaviour earned me 6 hugs and 4 requests for an autograph from some of the girls. Ka-Wa-Iiii! One girl even came over with a hand puppet (which ONLY spoke in English). One thing I can't get used to about english lessons here is the amount of Japanese spoken per class. I understand that there needs to be a balance but i just wasn't feeling it today. If someone speaks 80% Japanese and 20% english, then there is only a small amount of potential english that will filter through to the kids. They won't get the full 20%, but only a portion. It stands to reason that the higher the exposure to english, the higher the learning in potentia, correct?

I'm not feeling balance now - just tiredness with NO wakefulness to balance the scales. I'm in a room with a bunch of others who probably feel the same way, and are likewise drifting off and taking micro-sips of the tea that was served in micro-glasses so as not to be seen crossing the room during a speech for a cuppa Houji-cha. (Why, oh why does the tea dispenser have to be on the OTHER side of the room?). AT lest they can understand the guy talking. What he's saying may actually be exciting and interesting and engaging and i just can't tel- no, that can't be it, or that guy over there wouldn't look like he's had his brains sucked out though his nose.

Either way I have been relegated to playing the Wildly Popular game, (soon to be) known to seminar/meeting/presentation goers everywhere: "SPEECH BINGO!" Now this version is the new and improved JAPANESE SPEECH BINGO (JSB), not to be confused with the regular UNIVERSITY LECTURER BINGO (ULB). You draw up a grid, maybe 4 x 4, and fill each square with a potentially used phrase. For ULB they might be words like: correlation, result, reference, plagiarism, therefore, etc. etc. etc. but today i used words like: onegaishimasu (please - requesting), yoroshiku (may it be so), kodomo (children), gakko (school) , sensei (teacher) , arigatou (thankyou), hontoni (really), ALT (my job title) ....etc. When a speaker says one of these words, you cross it out, and when you get a line/a full grid, you supposedly say/yell/whisper BINGO! I wasn't so sure about yelling out bingo...not so sure how it would have gone down, but i got all of my words (2 and a half hours is plenty of time to listen for them.....and write a blog).

Unfortunately I wasn't seated next to M. sensei, so I couldn't jab him with my pen as promised.....I may just make up for it on Monday, when he least expects it...

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Photos

The results of boredom
Help! I'm being attacked by a (swarm? flock? plethora?) of butterflies!

Comments

[Re-Keisha]

I'll Be tryin' JSB !
hey nickie. had to comment on this blog. this is quite interesting. i had to attend a lesson observation also, but as the meeting was in japanese, i couldn't understand why they needed me there. but hey, i wish i'd known about JSB b4, as i sure would have made use of it !! kawaii :D

[Brendan]

Japanese language torture
You really are getting the Japan experience, and still, be thankful - you're not getting the worst of it. A week or so after I arrived in my region in Japan, all the local ALTs went to a welcoming event at a local school. It really was fascinating, and the amazingly modern sounding (almost techno) music the little koto club played for us was just amazing. Anyway, all was going well until the final part of the day - a speech by someone significant. It turned out he was a Belgian educator who'd been in Japan for 30 years or so. He spoke perfect Japanese, obviously, as well as perfect English. He was to give the speech to a room of newly arrived ALTs, none of whom spoke Japanese. The other participants were Japanese teachers of English. ie. the common language of the room was... frickin' English. Needless to say, Belgian twat went on for 2 hours in Japanese. Us poor bloody foreigners were still naive enough to hold on to our own customs, such as thinking it rude to not look like we were paying attention. So all of us are stifling yawns, struggling to sit up straight, trying not to let the tears in our eyes show - while the Japanese teachers, to a man, are sitting with arms folded, head back, eyes closed, mouth open and at least 3 of them were gently snoring. They did this to us JETs in that area 3 more times in the time I was there. Every time, the speaker spoke beautiful English - but the speech was given in Japanese. By the last time I'd had enough. Even though I could speak Japanese by that time, I did as the Japanese teachers and went to sleep on the desk. An annoying Yank girl poked me painfully in the ribs suddenly at one point and hissed, "He's asking you a question". I drearily stood up and said, "Je suis desole que j'ecoutais pas, mais vous voyez, comme tous les etrangers ici, je parle pas bien japonais et ca m'agace que la langue commune ici et l'anglais mais on a du subir deux heures de japonais". The speaker looked confused and said to me, in English, "I'm sorry I don't understand what you just said". My reply was, "Well now you know how half of room which are foreigners has felt for the last 2 hours". I'm surprised the teacher from my school accompanying me didn't commit suicide out of shame on the spot. But I think my point was valid.

[Kathy]

Awww chica! ULB just takes me back to Sharon-bitch-face's class and how much fun we used to have...all provided by ourselves that is! xx

[teecha_nikky]

You know...
There could be money in this. Run a little workshop with ideas on how to keep yourself entertained while someone is droning on, in English or not. I like that the Japanese openly show how they're feeling in that way, sleeping or looking disaffected and bored....it's a more honest approach than trying NOT to look how EVERYBODY in the room knows you feel...

[teecha_nikky]

Had to add...
What was that phrase she always used K? "quite frankly...""quite frankly"..."curriculum council"..."quite frankly" Honestly they were like bingo FREE spaces...

[anonymous]

I mean...quite frankly...thinking back to Sharon-uber-bitch...curriculum council...thank god you were there to entertain me! Quite frankly, she sucked *insert annoying manical laughter* xx