I had a big demonstration class yesterday. About half the junior high English teachers and ALTs came to my school to watch one of two demonstration classes. I helped with the 3rd year student class. There was also a 1st year class. The teachers could choose which class to go watch, but most ALTs watched my class, since it was team teaching. The other class was team teaching, but with two Japanese teachers.

For our lesson, we tried to get the students to speak to foreigners in English, and to practice using things like, "I don't understand," "Could you speak more slowly, please?" and "What does _______ mean? The students did pretty well, but I think they did better in practice. But with over 50 teachers packed into our tiny classroom, standing around them watching, I'm sure they were nervous. I was just hoping our students would learn that they can communicate in English, despite not having a strong mastery of it. I think they did accomplish that goal, and were able to communicate, despite the cultural differences.

After the team teaching class, we had a meeting where all the teachers gather and then we have to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the lesson, etc. My Japanese teacher was really scared, though. She told me I had to answer all the ALT's questions since she didn't speak English well. She said she would answer the Japanese teachers' questions. However, this was kind of a trick since Japanese people generally think it is rude to talk about things in front of lots of people. Basically it meant I would answer nearly all the questions. But I didn't really mind fielding the questions, so I agreed.

My teacher and I each had to make a short speech about how the class went. My teacher pre-wrote some of her speech in English, but switched to Japanese after it was over. I find it really annoying that she spoke in Japanese since there were non-Japanese speakers present, and her English is plenty good enough. In fact, she seemed totally embarassed to speak in English. This is particularly ironic, since the lesson we just had was about how it was okay to communicate in English when you aren't good (however, she's actually one of my most fluent teachers). I felt like I was sitting next to one of my students who refuses to speak.

One Japanese teacher finally asked her a question and she answered in a timid little voice that I doubt many people heard. Despite the fact that the Japanese teacher asked the question in English, Ms. Shouman answered in Japanese! It was really embarassing. Then one of the ALTs asked me a question about something Ms. Shouman had decided to do at the last minute without consulting me (why did we record the students' conversations?). I passed the question on to her, but she didn't seem to understand it. It was a really easy question, and she should've been able to understand it. I had to repeat it and simplify it so she would get it. I didn't want to put pressure on her like that, but I had no idea of the answer. She finally gave an answer to the ALT, but in Japanese! I had to ask another ALT who speaks Japanese what her answer was. Ms. Shouman looked absolutely terrified throughout the whole process. I couldn't tell if she was going to pee in her pants, cry, or what. She looked like an awful mess. I found this a little strange since she was fine during the actual class.

Afterwards my supervisor at the city hall spoke. She was kind of funny though, because she basically said something really blunt and un-Japanese about how the lesson was a failure since students weren't using the grammar point enough, despite the successful communications that were going on. It was a humorous that she said that, though. Somehow it didn't seem malevolent so much as a "better luck next time" sort of thing.

The meeting lasted about 50 minutes, until 4pm. Then the ALTs got to go home, but the Japanese teachers had to stay longer. Anyway, I'm just glad it's over so I have one less thing to worry about right now.