What do they think we're doing?

At the university I worked (and worked, and worked) at today some people have to teach in an unpopular building. It is unpopular because the classrooms are on the twelfth floor, and the lifts are slow and inadequate. It is also unpopular because the windows only open a crack (I imagine there are fears that a despairing student - or teacher - might jump), the classrooms too small for the numbers of students using them, and the air conditioning is centrally controlled and not on yet.

I am lucky. I do not have to work in that building.

The indignation of teachers having to use these rooms reached new heights this week. They arrived at their horrible twelfth floor classrooms to find that notices had been pinned up explaining that teachers are now required to close the doors to the classrooms when classes are in session, and to keep the noise down. Apparently workers in the offices on the same floor are being disturbed by the amount of 'oral English' coming out of the 'oral English' classes.

We wondered what the administrative staff thought the purpose of the university was, and the purpose of our classes. We often wonder this, actually. I mean, if you really wanted students to learn a language, would you offer them language classes that met once a week for ninety minutes and upwards of thirty students per class? (Some teachers have fifty students. I have been lucky this year - the largest class I have is thirty-five or six.) I listened sympathetically as my colleagues launched into bitter speechlets (no time for full speeches in the breaks between classes) about education in Japanese universities.

It's a good thing I'm not up there on the twelfth floor. My mathematics majors today almost deafened me. I couldn't tell them to shut up because I'd asked them to speak English, in pairs, and that's what they were doing, loudly and uproariously. When they'd finished I told them they'd done very well, and they looked pleased with themselves. Then I added that they'd done so well that next week I was going to bring ear plugs.

We are hired in order to get the students speaking English, and I did such a good job today that it has given me a headache. If I was in one of those twelfth floor classrooms and got that sort of appreciation for my efforts I know what I'd be tempted to do with their stupid notices.