Thought I would write a little something about the different schools I go to (I know Mum is interested in this, even if no-one else is!) :
First of all, a couple of notes. I teach at senior high schools (15 18 yr olds), where they come after….yep, you’ve guessed it!...Junior High School.
Also, there are different kinds of senior highs ; Academic schools, where the kids have to take a test to see if they can get in…these students are supposed to be the brightest, and are expected to go on to some kind of higher education. Then there are vocational high schools; Technical High Schools..where the students study all subjects, but specialise in computers, or mechanics, and stuff like that ; Agricultural High Schools…where the students study all subjects, but specialise in agriculture, food, textiles etc ; and Commercial High Schools..where I think (and only think…cos I still haven’t quite worked it out!), they specialise in a kind of businessy-type area…some of the students will go on to work in shops for example!
Senior High is not compulsory for Japanese kids (it’s a bit like our sixth form in England)…but in reality, very few people leave school after Jnr high. If you think that they stay at school to become hairdressers, farmers, shop assistants, waiters…then they really don’t have any prospects if they leave school before Senior High. I don’t mean that to sound harsh, but you know what I mean. Those kinds of jobs are things that kids in England might go into if they leave school at 16…but not in Japan!
So, on a Monday and Thursday, I go to my ‘base’ school, Yanai Senior High School. This is a large academic school..and I teach the whole of the first year. I teach 3 classes on a Monday, 40 kids in each class, and then 2 classes on Thursday, also with 40 students in each class. I am there to help teach the Oral Communication class, for which we follow a very dull textbook, and teach the prescribed dialogues, expressions and ideas. I don’t particularly enjoy the text book we use, and im not sure if the kids do either! But, I love the kids I teach in most of these classes. This is the school that has the boys who propose to me, the girl who writes me a letter a week, and the group of girls who wanted to exchange purikura with me (a sign of friendship!). Because I see these guys every week, I feel I know them quite well, and I can have a bit of banter with them. It also means that I feel I can take a bit more control in the classroom. I team-teach at all my schools, but at this school, I feel more like an equal, rather than an assistant. I therefore direct a lot of the lessons here, I explain the exercises, I ask for volunteers, and I am quite happy to tell them to shut up when they are being too rowdy! I’m not going to comment here, on a public blog, about the people I teach with, but I will say that I am the dominant teacher in 3 of my classes here, and that I bring the fun and happiness to the lesson! I also have a points system at this school, in order to encourage the students to volunteer and talk in English more. All of them have a points card, and when they answer a question, volunteer, or just come for a chat at my desk after class, I give them a sticker for their card. At the end of the school year (march), the student with the most stickers in each class, will win a prize, and a nice certificate. I am currently trying to design another smaller certificate, so that every student will have something for their effort! Wasn’t sure if this system would work…but the kids love the stickers, and so they do volunteer more on the whole. I also try to bring different stickers each week, so they always want to see what new stickers Lauren-sensei has this lesson! These kids are all 15 and 16 yrs old, but they sure love their stickers!
On a Tuesday, I go to Tabuse Agricultural High School. Tabuse is the town next to Yanai (one stop along on the train), and here I teach the whole of the 2nd year (16-17 yr olds). The kids here are not great at English, and a lot of them are quite hard work, because they simply are not interested in studying English..they are just looking forward to the day they can leave school and be a farmer, or whatever! I teach 20 students in each class, and they are really good fun most of the time. I also teach Oral Communication here, and the lessons vary from straight txt bk exercises, where I read the new vocabulary, and the kids have to repeat them (yawn!), to more fun games and activities that I design for a specific class. For example, I made some great menus for a restaurant game, and last week a cool card came, based on ‘what do you want to be in the future?’ This school is also cool, because it has its own farm, vegetable patches, and fruit trees! They even have pigs and sheep! Now and again, the school office sells some of the produce. I often go home with some school-made jam, or a bag of daikon (Japanese white radish)!
On a Wednesday, I go to Yanai Commercial High School. I normally teach the 3rd year (but not at the moment, because they have their end of school exams…so now I am teaching 2nd yrs until april). Again, I teach Oral Communication to classes of 40. The lessons are largely text-bk based, but we often find time for an end of lesson quiz or game, where the teacher (bless him!) brings in a bag of mikans (erm…like satsumas) as prizes! The kids go nuts for them for some reason! I like this school because it’s the closest to my apartment (takes 10 minutes to walk), and they let me leave at 3.30 (I leave my base-school at 4.15)…but also, because I teach the oldest kids (17 – 18 yr olds)…they are great fun…and a lot of them try really hard. They’re at the end of their school life, but they haven’t completely given up on English.
On Fridays, I go to 2 different schools. Normally, the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month, I go to a little school on the island of Oshima. This is a ‘branch’ school of Tabuse Agricultural High, so this school is also an agricultural school, with it’s own little farm and fields. My schedule here varies. Some weeks I have 1 lesson, some weeks (like today!) I have 4! I teach all the different years, and the classes are really tiny. This morning I taught the whole of the second year; 9 students in one class, 11 in the other! This afternoon I taught the same class sizes with the 1st year. There are some really sweet kids here ; there is one girl in the first year, who likes to draw me pictures of Pokemon! Bless her. But there are also some students who just talk or giggle all the way through the lesson, and who refuse to even say ‘good morning’ in English! The classes are quite hard work! I find it a lot easier to teach 40 kids, virtually on my own at my base school, than team-teaching 9 kids here!! But I also do have fun in my classes here. The teacher lets me pretty much decide what I want to do, and so the lessons are usually worksheets, games and activities that I have made. I am particularly proud of my Halloween lesson…I managed to get everyone to speak English in the ‘Which Halloween character am I?’ game! Today, was also really sweet, because my third year class brought me a big pile of thank you cards that they had made for me. I wont teach them again because they are leaving. The cards are soooooo lovely, covered in stickers, cute drawings, and messages of ‘thank you for teaching us English. I love Lauren.”
On the 2nd and 4th Friday, I go to Yanai Technical High School. This school has brownie points with me, because I don’t have to go in until 11am…so yey…a lie-in! I teach the 2nd year here…2 classes of 40 students. One of those classes is all boys!!! My god…the noise!!! I haven’t been here a lot, but the kids are really energetic, and shout my name down the corridor, as soon as they see me “HALLO LAWREN!!!” This school gets even more brownie points because I never have to do any lesson planning, and they let me leave after my second class....2.10!! I normally stop off for a Maccy Ds and Baskin Robbins on the way home. Well, it’s on my route home, so it would be rude, not to go in!!
