Day 161: When the student becomes the teacher

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One of my students Ayaka came to class early today, so were practicing reading together. She was telling me how hard she was finding it and I said that I understood, I can't read any Japanese at all, so she's doing really well and all those other teacherly things which completely threw her off track.

"You can't read Japanese?" she asked me

"Nope" I replied cheerfully

"Not even your name?" she asked

"Well...." I hesitated here "No."

The truth is I can write my name in japanese, but knew if I said yes I'd have to show her on the board and it wouldn't look to good if I got it wrong. I am her teacher after all.

Ayaka turned to Satsuki and babbled away in Japanese, Satsuki smiled at me and translated

"She wants to give you a lesson in Japanese"

"Great!" I smiled at Ayaka and gave her the chalk "lets go"

Ayaka started by writing the first part of my name "Ri" (Leah becomes Ri-ah) on the board in katakana and hiragana. I copied it down exactly and stood back to admore my work, I couldn't see any difference between hers and mine and was feeling pretty good about showing off my superior skills to Ayaka.

Side note >> I know how sad it is to try and show off to a 7 year old, but well.... I have no excuse.

I was standing there preening when I caught a glimpse of Ayakas face. It's hard to describe it, it was kind of sweetly disdainful like I could tell she was thinking Oh it's sweet but what the hell is that?

She took the chalk out of my hand and used it to gesture at the board about where I went wrong then put the chalk back in my hand and said in clear, concise english

"Try again"

Satsuki giggled from her table at the back of the room. I shot her a glance over my shoulder as I was attempting to write my name again, she straightened up her face and said solemnly "She's a strict teacher" before bursting into another fit of giggles. Ha. Some assistant.

I continued practicing my name until it met Ayakas standards and then she showed me some Kanji then we sat back and had a look at our scribblings on the board

"Nihongo wa muzakashi desu" (Japanese is difficult) I said to Ayaka

"Hai" she responded looking at my childs Japanese on the board "Eigo mo muzakashi desu" (English is difficult too)

"Hai" I replied and then looked at the clock. 4:20 pm, time to start the lesson.

I called my students over to the tables and started

"Today we're learning about countable and non countable.... so why you have cereal, but not a cereal or cereals"

My class collectively let out a groan and picked up their pencils. I could totally relate. Eigo wa sugoy muzakashi desu.

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Photos

Ayaka Sensei
Can you guess which one mine is?