From passive to crazy in 2 hours!

I have just had 2 lessons at Tabuse Agricultural High School, which pretty much summed up the two extremes of my teaching experiences in Japan. The first class, the kids were silent, uninterested, and looked terrified when asked to speak even the simplest of English. Classes like that are exhausting, as I try to keep up my perkiness and ALT enthusiasm. By the end of the class my smiles and cries of ‘ok, let’s look at the answers! Any volunteers?’ start to fade! There was also one particular girl, who was obviously so enthralled by the lesson (on school subjects), that she found the time to walk across the classroom, straight in front of me, and pull a giant pink mirror out of her bag. She then spent the rest of the lesson, playing with her fringe, and generally preening! I swear, the mirrors these girls carry round with them, are normally bigger than your hand, and often they have more than one! A range of mirrors for all occasions.

The second class had enthusiastic, loud, and really quite crazy kids! The class (most of whom were boys) started yelling, and shouting random English words as soon as I entered the classroom. They actually had quite a good vocabulary! After the usual greeting of ‘good morning’ to the class, I asked different students the ALT’s favourite question ‘How are you?’ Normally, I receive the stock response of ‘fine thank you, and you?’, the answer that has been drilled into them since elementary school, and which they now reel off almost mechanically! However, today I was pleasantly surprised (especially since these students’ level of English is not very high) to receive a range of responses ; ‘I am tired’, ‘I am hungry,’ and even one ‘I love you’. The latter was not quite what I was looking for, but a welcome change nonetheless! The lesson was fun, the kids were interested, and the atmosphere was warm and enjoyable for both the students and teachers. This class may now become one of my favourites for the next year, as I see them twice a month, and I can already foresee fun lessons with lots of laughter and enthusiasm for English!