What would a real teacher do?

The bird in my last post reminds me of an experience I had when I first started teaching. I hadn't been in Japan very long, and had no experience of teaching language before coming here. I didn't know what I was doing, and was amazed that anyone would give me a job. They seemed to think (and still do) that anyone who speaks a language can teach it. This worried me (and still does), so I read as much as I could find about how to teach, and talked to other teachers, and tried not to rip off the students too much. But I still felt like a fraud, and frequently the thought would pop into my head, What would a real teacher do right now?

This was one of those occasions. (I think I may have written about it before, but perhaps on my old blog. I can't find it now, but if you have have a moment of déjà vu reading this, that's why.)

I was teaching at a conversation school, and one of my classes was a one-to-one lesson with a university student. He was very, very shy. In fact he was so shy I used to wonder why he was there at all, because he could hardly speak even to the secretaries, in Japanese. In class he barely raised his head from the textbook, and getting him to speak above a whisper was almost impossible at first. I realized that he would make no progress if he didn't trust me, so was as kind as I knew how, and gently tried to coax him out of his shell. It was about a month before I even saw his face, he kept his head down so low.

A few months into our lessons some progress was being made. Occasionally he would volunteer a comment that wasn't something he was reading from the textbook. Now and again his voice rose above a whisper, and sometimes he even looked up from his book. We had reached the chapter in the textbook about pets.

"Do you have a pet?" I asked him. The question was in the textbook.

"Yes, I do," he replied.

I was encouraged. Maybe he would talk about his pet.

"What kind of pet do you have?" I asked.

"I have a bird," he said.

"What kind of bird?" I asked, and he reached for his dictionary.

As he started leafing through the dictionary, I continued to question him.

"Is it a canary?"

"No."

"A budgie?"

"No."

"A parrot?"

"No."

"Is it a small bird?"

"Yes."

"What colour is it?"

"White."

"Does it sing?"

"Yes."

Then he found the word in the dictionary, and looked up. He even smiled. I glowed with pride. What a good job I was doing! The shy kid was actually smiling!

And then he came out with his first ever entirely independent English sentence. It was a good sentence, too. It was grammatically and semantically perfect.

"I have a white tit, and it sings!" he said.

I had one of those moments.

What would a real teacher do right now? I thought, as I stared at him, goggle-eyed with a suppressed snort.

Today I told an experienced teacher about this moment, and asked him what he'd have done. He was entertaining, but unhelpful.

"I would have said, 'And what's wrong with the other one? Does it only hum?'" he said.

I must confess that I hadn't thought of that response. The horrible temptation I'd had when it happened was to lift my shirt and declare, 'Well, I've got two, and they don't!' I'm glad I didn't, but it would have been a language lesson to remember. (It probably would have also traumatized the boy for life.)

What I ACTUALLY did was to stare at him for a moment, compose myself, and say, weakly,

"How nice. Let's move on to the next page."

Great tit

"Did you know you're a Great Tit?" I asked the little bird.

"How rude!" said the bird.

"It says so in Wikipedia," I said.

"I don't care," said the little bird. "That's no reason to be so insulting."

"Also, it says that you like to say Teacher, teacher!" I said. "Is that why you're hanging around here?"

But I was too late. The bird had flown.

Still funny

Tonight I came home and there was an email from the boss who thinks I'm funny. He'd emailed it to all the teachers, wanting to know, now that the semester is underway, how things were going and whether there were any problems or worries with our classes.

I wrote back and told him that aside from my last class on Friday being so large any problems I have are with crowd control rather than teaching, everything was going swimmingly. I told him about my other classes having such good attendance and punctuality, even the first period one, and told him about the tests I'm giving.

He wrote back,

"Oh, BadAunt, you never cease to make me laugh!"

I went back to my email and read it again, rather puzzled. As far as I could see, it had not miraculously become funny since I'd written it. Apparently he is still injecting the funny himself, and attributing it all to me.

How interesting – and how strange! I cannot understand where he got the idea that everything I say or write is a giant hoot. I had only met him once or twice before I started working in his department this year, and as far as I remember did nothing sidesplittingly hilarious then. Who on earth has he been talking to? I'm tempted to ask him.

But actually, I think I'll just leave it. It's fun to make people happy, even if you don't know quite how you're doing it. He seems to be enjoying himself enormously, and it's gratifying to think that it's all because of me.

Neighbour troubles

We have some new neighbours. We noticed them because they were so noisy. Every morning we could hear them gossiping and carrying on, from our window. They seem to comment on everything. We didn't mind, though, because they sounded cheerful. It is always good to have cheerful neighbours.

We thought they had children, but weren't sure.

Late yesterday afternoon, just after The Man had gone out, I heard voices outside the hallway window. The door from this room to the hallway was open, so I could hear them clearly. They were saying terrible things, swearing and shouting and yelling. They were using uncivilized language, dreadful cursing and carrying on, and it worried me.

But I ignored it at first. It will soon blow over, I thought. Don't get involved.

But it didn't stop. The shouting and cursing just got louder, and more insistent and angry. Finally, I went to the window to see what was going on.

Sure enough, our new neighbours were angry. In fact they were positively hysterical with rage. They were bouncing up and down along the power lines and shrieking curses at something below them.

"DON'T YOU DARE EAT OUR BABIES!" they were shouting.


At first I thought they were yelling at the woman next door. They were looking in that direction. Was she a baby-eater? I wondered. She had always seemed relatively harmless to me.

Our new neighbours didn't seem to think so, though.


I leaned out the window and looked down.

It was not the woman next door. It was her visitor, who I could not see clearly because the roof was in the way. Our new neighbours really objected to this visitor.


I wasn't entirely sure that this was an invited visitor, so I asked our new neighbours if they wanted me to help.

"Yes, please," they said. "We can't go home until he's gone. He'll see where our babies are, and eat them!"


I went outside.

"Are you invited?" I asked the cat. But the cat did not answer. As soon as I got close, he slunk away.

"He's going?" said one of the neighbours. "Yes! He's going!"


"AND DON'T COME BACK! OR ELSE!"


I went inside. Outside, all was quiet again.

The intruder had gone, and the neighbourhood was back to normal.

Amazing

Last night The Man was speaking Chinese in his sleep. I was surprised, because he can't speak Chinese when he's awake. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but he was FLUENT.

It was amazing.

Bits from a Friday

This morning on the train I sat opposite a middle-aged woman who was crocheting a doily. She was wearing a lot of flat white makeup, with crimson lips painted on so that she looked like an ukiyo-e painting, little cupid's bow and all. The black floppy hat and frumpy clothes didn't really fit the image, though. It was as if an old painting had come to life and somebody had put a funny hat on it. It seemed a odd thing for an ukiyo-e woman to be doing, too, crocheting a doily.

I spent most of my long commute trying not to stare, and she did me the same favour, although sometimes our eyes met accidentally and slid away. I knew what we were both thinking. What a funny hat to wear with that makeup, I was thinking. What funny-looking people gaijin are, she was thinking. And why does she keep looking at me?

----------------------

In my potentially troublesome classes today in the new (to me) department I am having very few problems, so in the teachers' room at lunchtime I was smug. Teachers generally hate that department's classes.

"My first and second period classes over there are dreadful," said one teacher. "They can't even be bothered coming on time. Students are trickling in all class. And they're incredibly rude about it. There's a great interruption every time someone comes in, greeting their friends loudly and so on."

"Mine were all on time today," I said (smugly). "Those that came at all, I mean. In the second period I had eight absent, but in my first period class I had almost full attendance, and they were all on time."

Everybody stared at me.

"You lucky cow!" someone said, enviously. "You must have a high level class."

"No, they're middle-to-low," I said. "But I had been warned, by you guys, and started giving them tests in the second week."

Not that my students are getting very good grades in their tests (although some of them are getting better), but they are at least making sure they are in class on time for them. These tests are usually only three to five easy questions, which I tell them the week before, and I also tell them the answers. The catch is that the test is in the first ten minutes of class right after calling the roll, and anybody who isn't there for them can't get the points. And they're worth (culmulatively) thirty percent of their final grade. Basically they can get thirty percent of their grade for coming to class on time and paying attention in the last five minutes when I tell them what next week's test answers will be. It should be an easy thirty percent, but it's very rare for any student to get more than about twenty. I have never figured out why this is. Making the tests easier and easier doesn't seem to work.

"I had to yell at my lot today," said another teacher.

"Give tests instead," I advised. "When they come in late I act all disappointed. 'Oh, no!' I say. 'You missed the test, and it was a really easy one! What a shame!' And the student says, 'Test?' and gets all panicky, because they'd completely forgotten. It's brilliant. I am fantastically sympathetic, and they think I am kind."

But actually, I think the students in my first period class are enjoying themselves now that they've finally resigned themselves to getting up in time for class. Today I taught them how to um and er. I heard some of them saying,

"And-o..." while they were having 'conversations' today, and stopped them.

"'And' does not have an 'o' in it, I told them. "If you want to stretch the word so you have time to think, stretch the 'a,' and you can add um or er to the end, too."

I demonstrated, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"Aaaaaand ... um ... " I said. "Aaaaand ... er... "

They thought that was hilarious, and in their next conversations most of them used it. I heard Aaaand ... er... and Aaaaaand ... um ... all over the place. It was like being in a classroom full of deeply thoughtful people who just couldn't find the words to say what they wanted to say. Some of them didn't say much else, but I didn't worry about it. It is good when they try new things, especially if it sounds funny. You have to be prepared to sound funny when you're learning to speak a foreign language.

Making the classroom a safe place for students to sound funny is what my job is all about, when I'm not tricking them into coming to class on time.

Rose

The hardenbergia loves our garden, and we should not have planted it next to the climbing rose. It has overwhelmed the rose, which I had thought was indestructible. This year we have had, so far, only one rose blooming. Usually we have dozens, causing people to stop as they're passing to admire them. This year the hardenbergia bloomed wonderfully but the rose has had a hard time getting through to the sunlight.

I always neglect the rose. It usually blooms anyway, all over the place, and beautifully. Not this year.

We trimmed the hardenbergia yesterday but I fear it is too late. We will have another couple of roses – I have seen the buds – but I don't think there will be any more this spring. Certainly not the great clusters we usually get.

Maybe next year.



(Our one rose is PERFECT, though. And it is high up enough that the woman who usually steals our flowers cannot reach it. Ha.)

While the cat's away

The Man has been away for a few days, and I have been having a social life. On Saturday I went to a barbeque party. And to a pub.

It is a little worrying when you meet a new person and the first words out of his mouth when he shakes your hand are,

"BadAunt, eh? I've heard all about you!"

It is especially worrying when the person shaking your hand is a big scary-looking bloke with a shaved head. That is what happened to me at the barbeque party. It was his barbeque party, but I hadn't actually been invited by him. I had been invited by someone else, who was invited.

But the barbeque party was open to all, he told me, and I decided not to worry about what he'd heard about me. Sometimes it's better not to ask. Instead, I relaxed and enjoyed myself. The weather was wonderful and there was a good turnout – lots of colleagues, and those who had children had brought them, too. In fact the big bloke is also a colleague, and even works on the same day as me, but he told me he is teaching sports students in the evening which was probably why I hadn't seen him before. ("I once spent a whole semester teaching a sumo wrestler how to write his name in English.")

Later in the afternoon a surprise guest appeared, a woman who used to work at the same place but left a little over a year ago. She was back in Japan for a visit, and it was wonderful to see her again. In fact it was so wonderful that as it grew dark and we were leaving I let her drag me into a taxi and take me off to a pub she used to frequent when she was living here.

I never go to pubs here, or at least not the English or Irish pubs that are so popular amongst expats. The last time I went to a pub was at least ten years ago. The main reason I don't go is the music. It is TOO LOUD. What is the point of going to a place to spend time with a friend and then not being able to have a conversation? My friend has a powerful voice. I was able to hear her, but only if she shouted very loudly in my ear, and she could not hear my answers. In any case, she circulated, greeting old friends and having snatches of conversation between songs, and I sat at the bar and nursed my one drink. I made it last. I did not want to end up both deaf and drunk.

The place was crowded, and I was lucky to have a barstool. That was courtesy of the big bloke, who was already there when we arrived and who seemed to think I was a fragile flower who needed taking care of. (Either that or I look elderly and frail. I'm not sure.) He pinched the stool from someone who was unwise enough to go to the toilet leaving it unguarded and wise enough not to complain when he came back and saw who had taken it.

I then spent the rest of the evening being flirted with. That was a bit surprising, and I have to admit that I'm not really sure that those guys really were flirting with me. I am out of practice. It is possible that they were actually asking me how many grandchildren I had. I couldn't hear what they were saying. They all had a lot to say, though, and didn't seem to mind that nobody could hear them. Do frequent pub-goers learn to lip-read? Is that the secret?

In any case, they seemed to be able to understand what I said, or at least bits of what I said (not much – I do enough shouting at work) although one of them apparently got the impression that I was a pill-popper. "Don't do it!" he shouted in a lull in the music. "Don't do pills!" He was waggling his finger at me. "You should stop! Those things will kill you!"

Then the next song started and my attempts to set him straight were reduced to meaningless gestures. He spent the rest of the evening shaking his head sadly at me and looking worried.

The big scary bloke (who turned out to be quite a gentleman) apparently decided I needed some protection, so nabbed another stool (there were a lot of weak bladders in that pub) and pulled it up beside me. We had a long conversation during which he did most of the talking while I nodded and smiled encouragingly. I don't know what it was about. I only heard bits between songs. Did he really say he used to be some kind of criminal? Maybe I made that bit up.

Eventually I decided my ears had been assaulted enough for one night and slipped away, hugging my friend goodbye and then escaping the grasp of a very short, sad-looking bloke who apparently thought I was going to be his new best friend and also wanted a cuddle. Walking back to the train station I was still feeling fantastically beautiful and popular when I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirrored pillar and was brought back to earth with a thud.

Two days later my ears are still ringing and I still don't have a clue what all that was about. It's a long time since I sat on a bar stool surrounded by men wanting to buy me drinks. In fact I'm not sure that it has ever happened before, and it was a bit confusing. Are there a lot of desperate gaijin men in Osaka? Or are they just particularly kind to older women? If only I could have heard what they were saying! But perhaps it is better for my ego that I couldn't.

I'm hoping to see my friend again before she leaves the country, but not if she wants to go to a pub again. It was interesting, but that was enough pubbing for me for at least the next ten years.

General oddness

I had an odd sort of day today. The 'difficult' class of repeat students has apparently decided that I'm an acceptable teacher to have after all, and hung around for their full ninety minutes, the annoying little buggers. The first two weeks they were out the door before I'd finished telling them we could finish early if they wanted. Suddenly they're hanging around and wanting to talk, and I'm the one wanting to rush off because my next class is way across campus. Obviously they're having too much fun. Must remember to give them something tedious next week.

Then the student I wrote about earlier who is my only weirdo this semester revealed his true colours. Not in a way you can fault, exactly, but he made my last class, which I had thought would be easy, incredibly difficult. He is a model student. He does exactly what he is told. But he does it with an air of patronizing patience. He is a big lump of a guy (not fat, but big), who wears his trousers up around his nipples somewhere and has the social skills of a tub of lard. He seems to regard the other students as silly children, and it is hard to believe he is only nineteen himself. He is like a tired old man, bored with the silly infants he is being forced to associate with.

None of this would be a problem, except that any student I pair him with, or group I put him in, gets the life sucked out of it so fast it's like it has moved into the orbit of a black hole. As it is a small class (only twelve students!), this is affecting the entire class. I get them changing partners and groups often, to spread the pain, but all that means is that the black hole gets moved around the room like a vacuum cleaner, sucking the energy out of the whole place. I can see the other students trying hard, the sweeties, trying to include him in the general fun, but he discourages them and it is starting to show. They are becoming reluctant, and I don't blame them. That kid is a VAMPIRE.

I am tempted to tell him to sit in a corner and talk to himself next week. I won't, of course, but I don't know what I will do.

In the repeat students class I did the general knowledge quiz today, which is part of the reason they had so much fun. They were astonishingly bad at it, and LOVED it. My favourite little discussion came when I asked the question,

"Which country was Picasso from?"

The two guys who were trying to answer the question went into a huddle.

"All I can think of is Spain," said one to the other, half apologetically, and I almost fell off my chair. I restrained myself, however, and kept quiet.

"Don't be silly," said the other one. "Picasso was from Europe!"

"Oh, yeah. That's right. Sorry."

The world righted itself again. I don't know what I'd do if my students started showing signs of actually knowing anything. Half my activities would become boring, because I wouldn't be able to laugh at them any more.

Fire!

On Sunday morning, before The Man had woken up, there was a phone call from his mother. As usual, she was talking rapidly before I had even got the phone to my ear and figured out who it was. I caught something about her going to the supermarket, her house, and a fire. After a while she stopped and announced herself, and wanted to know who I was.

I told her.

"How are you?" she asked. "Are you well?"

"I'm fine," I replied, somewhat confused.

"Is The Man there?" she asked.

"Yes," I squeaked. My head was still spinning. "What did you say about a fire?"

I had a vision of her house burning while she asked after my health.

"It's gone! I can't get into the house!" she said.

I thought about this, and the vision in my head shifted slightly. Now the house was on fire and front door was buckled so she couldn't open it. But what was 'gone'? And why was she trying to get into a burning house? Nothing made sense.

"I'll get The Man," I said. I was pretty sure this was an emergency.

I started to run upstairs. Halfway up something in my head clicked, and I slowed down.

"Oh! I get it!" I said. "You lost your key!"

"Yes!" she said.

I am always mixing up kagi (key) and kaji (fire). If I think about it I am not confused, but when Okaasan is involved it is hard to think clearly.

I woke up The Man.

"It's your mum," I said. "She lost her key and can't get into the house."

"Eh?" he said, groggily, and took the phone. "Moshi moshi," he said, and after a pause, "MOSHI MOSHI!"

But Okaasan had gone.

Eventually she phoned back (she is a little confused by public phones) and we ended up having to visit her, taking The Man's key and getting another two cut along the way. Now she has an everyday key and a hidden spare. It was a relief to see the house. A part of me was still anxious about the non-existent fire.

Okaasan was so pleased to see us that she gave me her first ever spontaneous hug. Usually I hug her, not the other way around. I have been training her to hug for years. The first time I hugged her it was like hugging a small, rigid mannequin. Yesterday she collapsed into my arms, all soft and relieved, and it was lovely.

But as we left I found myself wishing that the hair salon Okaasan patronizes would burn down. I knew her hair was a weird purple colour but I hadn't seen it in daylight before, and it gave me a bit of a fright.

Butterflies

The butterflies like the yellow flowers growing down by the river.

Mr Spoon

Last night I slept for twelve hours. I only woke up once. At that time I asked The Man, urgently,

"Is it Saturday? Can I sleep more?"

"Yes," he said, and he may have said more but I did not hear it. I was asleep again already, dreaming.

I dreamed that I met a spoon with the head of a man. He had a very tidy haircut, and his face was long, white and sad. Also, he had an extremely long neck. In fact, that was all he had, because he was a spoon.

"Help me!" he wailed, and big tears trickled down his face. "Please! Help me! I want to pee!"

But I did not help him because I had been told, or maybe just knew (in the way you know things in dreams) that it was a trick. He was dangerous. He continued to cry for help and I carried on, along with everybody else. There were a lot of people.

It was a postmodern dream. I know that because somebody in the dream told me so.

"So this is what the future is like," I remember thinking. My sleeping brain interpreted the word 'postmodern' very literally.

When I woke up Mr Spoon was still vivid in my mind, but the rest of the dream faded rapidly. I laughed at the idea of a spoon with a man's head. How silly! I thought. How utterly bizarre! But he also made me feel a little anxious. What was so dangerous about him? Why couldn't I help him?

And what was all THAT about?