Summer lessons
Students are always in class on time, usually before the teacher is there, and it’s summer vacation. The third year students come to school for supplementary English classes, which is a large portion of the university entrance exams. Kishiwada high school is the most difficult school to get into in the area, so students that go here usually try to get into Tokyo or Kyoto Universities, the Harvard and Oxford of Japan. It gets intense, which is why there’s a high suicide rate.

Just this morning, when I was stamping my hanko in the attendance book, a teacher remarked that a former graduate had died, as was written on the whiteboard in front of me, which I of course could not read. “But how…” she murmured in English. Another English teacher stared hesitantly at the whiteboard behind her. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept quiet. I was told by a friend that if someone dies, and they don’t say how, you never ask because it could have been a suicide.

Students come to class in uniform—boys wear white button down shirts and navy blue pants (navy blue is big here), and girls where a very light, light blue shirt with blue plaid skirts. Everyone leaves their shoes at the entrance and puts on sandals. The sandals don’t fit me, but I try.

I went around class checking to see if students had done their homework, which I can’t help with very much because the majority of the problems involve translation from Japanese, so I can only say if it makes sense or not.

I went up to a student that hadn’t done his homework and make a confused gesture. “Where’s your homework? You didn’t do it?” It’s not actually required, since these are supplementary lessons. I point to the student next to him who has the assignment completed.

“Here we go,” I said, “He is a good student.” I speak slowly and clearly. It sounds funny to me still, but I force myself. If I were to speak like that to a native speaker, they’d probably think I was being sarcastic.

When class finally starts, H-sensei has them do some exercises to wake up, and today they are particularly strange. First he asks me if I know any that they could do, and I shake my head. He has hold their hands with all their fingertips touching the fingertips of their other hands, and then twiddle each finger around another. To my surprise, all the students do this, although I can’t see that this will help get their blood pressure up.

The material they’re studying is very difficult. The text consists of different essays, about 500 words each, with advanced grammar and idiomatic phrases. The topics range from communication among bees to culture shock. Today, we’re reading an essay on how history repeats itself.

First, I read a paragraph, all the students following closely in their books. I sound like a news castor in slow motion.

As soon as I finish, H-sensei says, very quickly, “Ok, thankyouverymuch!” similar to how the Japanese quickly say, “Arigato gozaimasu!”

Now, H-sensei dissects the text, reading and translating every part as the students follow. Each student has a thoroughly prepared case of pencils, erasers, rulers, pens, and whatever else one needs to write, in addition to an electronic translator that looks like a small laptop. They look like architects. They underline phrases in different colors and make notes on the side. They use a ruler to underline—no sloppy lines or highlighter.

H-sensei periodically asks me for a synonym of a word, or what the difference between two words are. For example, he asked me what the difference between “adjust” and “adapt” were. Well, there’s a difference, but I don’t think the students really need to know, or will remember. But I explain it, which is met by a, “Ah, yes, yes!” and he writes the words on the board. Two students are sleeping on their desks. When I read the next passage, I pace around the classroom and wander near the sleeping students.

H-sensei always likes to surprise me by asking me to explain something that we didn’t discuss beforehand. I’m pretty good at improvising, but it’s helpful to script things out beforehand in simple English, so I don’t really appreciate these surprises. He asks me to explain why “the past is not dead,” as it explains in the text. I think for a second, then grab a student’s dictionary.

“This is your favorite book,” I tell H-sensei. He nods. “You like it very much. I want this book, but you won’t let me have it.” Then I point behind H-sensei and say, “Look! There!” and then grab the book from him. He makes a sound of defeat and the students laugh. “So, then, next week, you get another book that I want. And I see you again,” I say, walking up to him. “Look! Over there!” I say again, but H-sensei has of course wised up to the trick. I make a futile grab for the book, and the students laugh again. “So, what happened?” I ask H-sensei.

“I learned a lesson,” he answers.

“You remembered the past.”

“Yes.”

“So would you say that the past is important?”

“Yes. Ok, thankyouverymuch!”

Late, he asks me to explain how history repeats itself. I write “past” on the board and next to it I write, “1988-1992.” Then I write, “the present.” I go up to one of the students I know and ask him who was president of The U.S. during 1998. He says, barely audible, “Bush.” I asked him to repeat it, holding my hand to my ear. Japanese students hate repeating themselves, but he does it. “Bush,” I said, repeating it louder for the rest of the class. “What about now? In the present?” I ask another student. “Bush,” she says, barely audibly. “Ah, so, would you say that history repeats itself?” No answer. I ask the question more slowly. “Yes.” H-sensei translates into Japanese and there are a few chuckles. For the most part, students only laugh at the more obvious and physically based humor though.
Japanese students don’t speak English, for the most part. There are a few talkative types, but they are very rare. The entrance exams focus almost exclusively on reading and writing, with a small portion of listening. So students don’t usually speak anything besides, “Good morning,” and “How are you?” If you ask them how they are, it’s always, “fine, thank you.”

After class, there’s a girl who has me check essays that she has written on the previous day’s topic. She tries to use very advanced grammar and words, and it takes me a while to figure out what she’s saying. I try to make as little corrections as I can, since I know the students get discouraged easily. “The dog could not eat food when owner adapt,” is one sentence. There’s so many possible ways to change this, but I don’t want to modify her word choice, since that would me discouraging. I don’t remember how I resolved it.

It’s lunch break, and there’s a lingering group of boys. I go up to them and say that I think they should stay in the classroom in study instead of going outside. They smile and say, “No, no.”
Outside, I go up to another group of boys, and ask them if they’d like me to read out of the book some more, so they can practice listening comprehension. I pace through their circle, they laugh and try to repeat words I say. I stop after a couple sentences. I chat with some of them a bit in my poor Japanese, which isn’t much worse than the level they can speak at. They ask some of the typical questions, “Do you eat sushi,” and “How tall are you?” I eat whole fishes, and I am 5 meters tall, are the usual answers.
“Ok, now I teach you some Japanese,” one of the boys says. He points to his groin and says, “chaka.” I’d been expecting this one, but hadn’t really thought how I’d answer. I’ve heard stories about students going to their foreign English Teachers and asking them if they have a “bigu diku?” or about their sexual habits, but it doesn’t really phase me. The best thing you can do is to command enough respect so that this doesn’t happen.

The boy repeats himself, trying to get popularity points with his other friends. I put my hand to my ear and say, “What? Louder. I can’t hear.”

He looks around to see if the group of girls nearby is within earshot. They are.

“Chiisai desu? Chiisai to iimasu?” I asked.

He shakes his head, “no, no!”

I had said, “It’s small? You said, ‘small?’” Thinking back, this may not have been the best answer, but it’s what I did, and I stand by it. That was enough English teaching for the day.