Someone asked me to talk a little more about the kids I would be working with and my job. So I'll explain as best I can, though I haven't really started working with the kids yet, so I don't know how it will all work out. For the most part I teach junior high school kids (7th-9th grade) but I also teach at one of three elementary schools on Friday afternoons. At the elementary schools, I will mostly teach 4th-6th graders, but maybe some younger kids occassionally too. Each of the three different elementary schools has a different plan for how things should be.

Normally I will teach 2-4 classes a day at the junior high school. I will not be alone with the students though. Instead I will team teach with an English teacher. The theory is that we should plan lessons together and stuff, but I guess it does not work as well in practice since the teachers can be quite busy. My predecessor also told me that many times he would plan team teaching lessons and then the teachers would cancel them at the last minute. This does not seem like much fun to me. Apparently many teachers, especially the third year teachers are concerned about big important tests that the students have to take. So they are constantly worrying about the tests and making sure they are in the appropriate place in the textbook. I am involved in the English speaking and listening comprehension classes only, which the students have three times a week. The reading and writing classes are more frequent and at a different time. I think many students read and write much better than they speak. Currently it seems like they speak quite poorly. I have only met first and second year students so far, but most of their English is limited to "Hello, how are you? I am fine, thank you" sort of things. Many of the students are quite embarassed about English also, so that does not help. No doubt they will improve over time.

Unfortunately many of the teachers do not speak English very well at all either. This does not help things for the students, since at least one of the English teachers holds his English speaking and listening class in Japanese almost exclusively. What has surprised me is that the teachers do not seem too eager to practice their English or really improve that much. All the English department meeting are in Japanese, and they often don't even talk to me in English. Maybe they are just embarassed, but if you do not practice, you will not improve. I am trying to start a conversation group among the teachers for every two weeks or so. Maybe a book group would work well too. I will say that all the English teachers are very positive about my being here and are very kind to me. So this gives me hope that they are interested in improving their English.