Archive for category Teaching English
July 2006 – Busted (not me)
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 29, 2017
“No interacting with students outside of the classroom” is one of the cornerstones of NOVA employee policy. The idea is to prevent teachers from stealing students from the school for cheaper private lessons, and to reduce the risk of any unpleasant interactions that could cause the students to stop buying lessons.
** Please remember, when I say “students”, I am referring to conversation school students who are typically adults.
In Kawasaki I was aware that some teachers were seeing students outside of the classroom, but when I arrived in eastern Shizuoka I was surprised by how often it happened. Pretty much everyone other than supervisors had been to an “unofficial” farewell party with students in attendance. In addition, several of the teachers are or were dating students, and my friend Koalako shared an apartment with two teachers in Numazu.
Hanging out with students was an open secret in the area, with the understanding that everyone should keep it quiet and not let the supervisors or Japanese branch staff know. For the amount of times that teachers and students interacted outside of the classroom, it’s actually surprising how few people got caught. The good luck streak was broken in mid 2006 when teachers got caught red handed.
The two male teachers had invited two female Japanese students out for a drink, and for some reason decided to go to an izakaya near Fuji school that was popular with the Japanese branch staff. They were seated near the entrance, when coincidentally the branch staff came in for an after work drink as well. My understanding is that the teachers were called to a tense meeting with the area manager shortly after to remind them of NOVA’s policies.
I can understand NOVA’s point of view about the policy: they are a business and they need to protect their future profits. However, I think there is a lot of benefit from teachers and students interacting outside of the confines of the classroom. The best way to practice conversational English is to have a real conversation. Interacting outside of the classroom in a natural setting is also a great way to improve intercultural understanding. Other than good times at karaoke, I got a lot more out of my time in Japan by spending time with Japanese people instead of just teachers.
If you are teaching in Japan and decide to ignore company policy by hanging out with students, please be sensible, behave properly, and don’t ruin it for everyone else. Also, choose the venue carefully: you don’t want branch staff to crash the party!
Memorable students: The Thesaurus (showdown)
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 12, 2017
This is the second in a three part series about one of the most infamous English students in the eastern Shizuoka area; The Thesaurus, who had a more impressive English vocabulary than some of the teachers I worked with. On one fateful evening I ended up in a vocabulary showdown with The Thesaurus in front of a room full of students. I barely came out with a victory.
The Voice room usually has open conversation or some English activities designed to keep everyone involved. The room was full of students from all skill levels, and the infamous Thesaurus. The previous teacher had been teaching some common English idioms to the students (a common topic), so I decided to turn this into a game.
I wrote one of the idioms across the whiteboard, and told the students that using the only the letters on the board, they had to make as many words as they could within a certain time limit. Words had to be at least 3 letters long, and I would award one point per letter. I divided the students up into teams, leaving The Thesaurus on his own, and started the timer. The game worked surprisingly well; students at lower levels came up with lots of small words, while The Thesaurus worked on pulling out the largest words he knew. Any words that students didn’t know got explained to the room.
I repeated this a few more times with continued success. As the time was running out, somehow the room came up with the idea that I should challenge The Thesaurus. I felt like I was playing for the pride of the teachers, honestly worried about being beaten by a man who read the dictionary for fun. The stakes were high and the pressure was on.
We took turns identifying words that we could build. With only minutes left, The Thesaurus managed to find an obscure 11 letter word that could be assembled from the letters available. I was on the spot – flashbacks of endless games of Scrabble against my mother played in my head, defeat after defeat coming into my mind. Here I was, a native English speaker, about to lose a word game of my own creation against the most infamous student in that has ever walked into a NOVA classroom in the Shizuoka area. It would be a blow to the teachers, and to Canadian English as a whole. The students were on the edge of their seats waiting for me to pull out a language miracle.
As I was beginning to lose hope, I saw my savior: the glorious letter “S”. I added it to the end of The Thesaurus’s word, pluralizing it to create a 12 letter word, one more than his 11 letter word. The students oohed and aahed as I wrote down my final word, barely claiming victory from the jaws of an embarrassing defeat as the class drew to a close.
I don’t know if this game was as memorable for anyone else in the room, but I won’t soon forget my epic vocabulary showdown with The Thesaurus.
Memorable students: The Thesaurus (intro)
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 11, 2017
This is the first in a three part series about one of the most infamous English students in the eastern Shizuoka area; The Thesaurus. He was a middle aged salaryman who believed that to master English, he needed to learn and use only the longest and most complicated words available in any situation. This approach made him challenging in lessons, and nearly impossible in the Voice room where students of all skill levels could attend.
As someone who has taught English while learning a second language, I learned that while a large vocabulary is useful, it is not critical to communication. “Where is the toilet” can be just as effective as “excuse me kind sir, my bladder is full and I am looking for an appropriate receptacle to expel urine. Could you please direct me to the nearest washroom facility post haste?”. If you can imagine the second sentence being spoken in a monotone voice, you would have a good idea of what talking to The Thesaurus was like.
The Voice room was The Thesaurus’s favourite place to hang out. He would come for several periods, making the room difficult or impossible for the lower level students. There are even some students who would check to see if The Thesaurus was in the Voice room before they entered. If he was there, they would take a lesson or go to a nearby school’s Voice room. The Thesaurus had the ability to adjust his speaking to students of all skill levels, he just wasn’t interested in doing so.
I had two tactics for working with The Thesaurus in the Voice room: the first was to stealthily break up the students into two conversations, one for The Thesaurus and anyone else who wanted to test their dictionary recall, and one for everyone else. This wasn’t ideal, but at least everyone could participate. My second tactic was to have one open conversation, and write down the most difficult words that The Thesaurus used on the whiteboard so the other students could look them up. This could work as long as we stayed with topics that were interesting to most, and not more obscure topics like the system of government in Turkey (yes, this was really something he tried to talk about).
To make matters worse, The Thesaurus was the only student I knew who had an Arch Enemy: another middle aged salary man who was generally well liked by other students and teachers. The Arch Enemy HATED The Thesaurus, and wasn’t shy in expressing this to anyone who would listen. The Arch Enemy would make a point of sitting right next to The Thesaurus to make him uncomfortable. When The Thesaurus started showing off his extensive lexicon, Arch Enemy would interrupt and tell him that nobody wanted to hear what he had to say. There is even a rumour of The Arch Enemy throwing his newspaper at The Thesaurus once. The Arch Enemy was intimidating at best, and bullying at worst, but only to The Thesaurus.
This kind of outright hostility was very unusual in Japanese society, and even more unusual in a classroom setting. It was uncomfortable for all involved, and everyone would feel a bit better when one of the two of them would leave the Voice room.
Overall, I don’t think that The Thesaurus was a bad person, he was just a challenging student. If someone wants to pay money for English lessons and has a goal in mind, it’s their right to be there. The problem was that he rarely considered the goals of the other students in the room, which helped make him one of the most difficult lessons that a teacher in the area could experience.
To put a positive spin on things: teaching The Thesaurus was a great way to build classroom management skills, learn some new words (even for teachers), and also a great excuse to go for a beer after work.
Memorable Students – Feeling good
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 27, 2017
As an English teacher, I always felt particularly proud of my efforts to try to help the weaker students in a class. I can understand how hard it is to learn a new language, and how frustrating it can be to see the people around you having an easy time of it. Conversational English teachers are given the bare minimum of training, so they aren’t always equipped to help struggling students. I tried to see weaker students as a challenge, and loved seeing the results when we were able to make a breakthrough.
I was teaching a level 6 student in Kawasaki NOVA who was struggling in many of his lessons. One evening I was lucky enough to have him in a man to man lesson: unlike a group lesson, we were able to work at his pace and I was able to give him all of the focus and feedback. He ended up having a fantastic lesson. By the time the final bell rang, he was smiling and confident. We both felt like we had achieved something.
As I was leaving the classroom, the happy student said to me “Thank you Mr. Andrew! When I speak English, I feel myself good”.
Different people have different ways to celebrate a good English lesson, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t actually intending to feel himself.
Part of me thought I should correct him on the awkward phrasing, but I didn’t want to bring down his good mood so I let it go and left him smiling all the way out of the branch.
June 21, 2006 – Paid to sit on my ass
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on February 27, 2017
If there is anything better than being paid to sit around at home I haven’t found it yet.
June 15, 2006 – Ethical dilemmas and Prince of Space
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Teaching English on January 20, 2017
Today was pay day, the happiest day of the month! (Yes, we only get paid monthly)
In addition to my NOVA pay, I got a “bonus” in the form of free beer vouchers from one of the students. This student has been stuck in level for a while, and is trying hard to get promoted. The timing of his gift is not coincidental.
NOVA has a strict policy about teachers not accepting gifts from students. I tried to refuse in the classroom but he insisted on giving me the beer vouchers. After a brief ethical dilemma I decided to accept them because:
- He had given the same gift to a few other teachers that he liked
- I will share the beer with other teachers
I celebrated pay day and the soon to be shared gift by watching a terrible MST3K movie called “Prince of Space” with my roommates. The movie was a combination of two short Japanese movies from 1959 based on the TV show “Planet Prince”. For the American release, the two movies were edited together and dubbed into English by Italians. It’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s much worse. Check out a review on badmovies.org here!
May 2006 – Jenny doesn’t like me anymore
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Teaching English on December 9, 2016
I’m not exactly sure the date of this story, but it happened when I was a teacher at Numazu NOVA, so May seems like as good a place as any.
Jenny was a difficult person to get along with. She was one of those people who always had a chip on her shoulder both inside and outside the office. I had very few interactions with her in person, but I had heard a lot about her from other teachers.
According to the rumour mill, Jenny had been working at Fuji NOVA and was having trouble getting along with the supervisor. Before her annual performance review, she contacted the area manager claiming that the supervisor didn’t like her because of the colour of her skin. Since intensive HR training and conflict resolution are likely not mentioned at all during NOVA’s barebones manager training, Jenny was simply transferred to a nearby branch to solve the problem.
The other thing I had heard about Jenny was from her former roommate Angie, one of my good friends and someone I trust. Angie was a lot of fun to work with, to hang out with, and everybody liked her. Well, everyone except Jenny. Apparently they had some kind of roommate disagreement which resulted in Angie’s new computer being being damaged after liquid had been poured inside. Angie had no direct proof, but with Jenny being the only person with access and motive Angie was convinced that Jenny was responsible. She went to NOVA and demanded a new apartment because she didn’t feel safe living with Jenny anymore.
I had worked with Jenny a few times, and had attended Charlie’s farewell party with her last year. I was always a bit wary of her because of Angie’s experiences, but I tried my best to be professional and play nice at the office. Sharing a cramped teacher’s room with people you don’t get along with makes for a very long day at work.
On one particular day, a branch manager from a nearby school was visiting Numazu. Jenny was at Numazu on a shift swap. The two of them were talking in the teachers room between lessons. Teacher’s room conversation is usually open to anyone in the room, so after I had gotten ready for my next lesson I joined the conversation.
“Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! This is a conversation between A and B, so you can C your way out of it” yelled Jenny with an angry look on her face.
I was shocked by her rude response; it came completely out of nowhere – I had no indication that she had any problem with me before, and even later I still can’t think of anything I had done to provoke such a strong reaction. Usually I could let something like this go, but I think Jenny had caught me on a particularly stressful day with one too many kids classes. My response was quick and probably more harsh than it needed to be; I decided to borrow the words of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys. Yes, this Ricky:
I looked directly at her and asked “Hey Jenny, do you have any offs that need fucking?”. She responded “What?”. I answered “FUCK OFF”.
This immediately had two effects: the first was that all of the other teachers in the room said “WHOA” at the same time, likely because nobody had ever heard me talk to anyone else in that way before. The second effect was that Jenny never said another word to me again. Not during the day, not on the train, not at another branch, never. Jenny’s silence did not, however, have a negative effect on the rest of my time in Japan at all.
Standing up for yourself is important, although I probably could have handled the situation better. I’m not proud of jumping directly to Ricky quotes, but looking back on the situation I also don’t have any regrets.
Memorable students – The Twins
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on November 25, 2016
During my time at Mishima NOVA, I got to teach some really memorable students. This is about The Twins, who usually came for lessons on one of my days off.
Many students come for lessons on the same days every week. My usual days off were Sunday and Monday, so I rarely got to teach students who would only come on those days. One particular Monday I was working on a shift swap, and noticed that I had a lesson with two students with the name family name. When I asked about it, the other teachers told me that I had to teach “The Twins”.
The Twins are identical 14 year old twin girls who, like many of the younger students, were only taking English lessons because their parents forced them. They were notoriously difficult to teach, with my supervisor warning me that it wasn’t uncommon for them to both stop talking a few minutes into the lesson, turning the remainder of the 40 minutes into an uncomfortable staring contest. To make matters more challenging, they were both in the second lowest level and had been for some time.
If I had been a less experienced teacher I probably would have entered the classroom with an impending feeling of dread. In this case I decided to challenge myself; I was going to see if I could get The Twins to talk.
I walked into the lesson, put my student files down on the table, and introduced myself with a big friendly smile. I asked Twin 1 her name and she responded. I asked Twin 2 her name and she responded as well. I told them I was from Canada and I lived in Numazu (modeling the response I wanted from The Twins). I asked Twin 1 where she lived, and she said Mishima. I then asked Twin 2, who naturally also answered Mishima. I pretended to be surprised that they both lived in the same city.
I then told The Twins that I was an English Teacher and asked what they did. This time I started with Twin 2 who said she was a junior high school student. Twin 1 gave the same answer. I faked surprise again. My fake surprise increased when they told me that they went to the same school. I kept doing this for a few more minutes until Twin 2, who wasn’t sure if I was actually clueless, pointed at Twin 1 and said “she is my sister”.
Score one for the teacher! I just got unprompted dialogue in English from one of the school’s most difficult students!
I don’t think they really knew what was going on, but they did keep talking and I managed to get a decent lesson out of both of them. I proudly returned to the teachers room to describe my accomplishment.
In case you’re wondering, acting clueless was not something that I learned in my 3 days of on the job training when I became an English teacher; that was all me 🙂
(Author’s note) I did get a few more successful lessons with the twins after this, with only brief staring contests.
April 22, 2006 – Zenbu wakatta yo
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on October 25, 2016
The month of April has been a busy one for group kids classes. After two and a half years as an English teacher in Japan I would consider myself to be a “good” or “very good” teacher for adults. I enjoy most of my lessons and feel like the students are both enjoying themselves and learning something.
I can’t say the same things about my kids classes; they are the hardest and least enjoyable part of my job.
Today in one of my group kids classes, I had a young girl who decided it would be fun to throw a marker at my face. I wish I could say that I made a matrix-like dodge, impressing the class into respecting my teaching authority. Instead they laughed as the marker bounced off my face while making a smacking sound.
The same little girl decided to up her game later in the class (after I had hidden the markers) by calling me a bunch of nasty words in Japanese. One of the big selling features of NOVA is that the classroom environment is supposed to be English immersion. Even if teachers can understand Japanese, we are supposed to use English at all times. However, after about a full minute of her using every awful word she knew I was getting tired of the abuse. I smiled, leaned in, and told her quietly but firmly “zenbu wakatta yo” (I understand everything). She was shocked, turned red, and immediately stopped the name calling.
English immersion or not, everyone living in a foreign country should make efforts to learn the local language. It might come in handy one day!
Author’s note: I recognized most of the names she was calling me because the “bad” words in a new language seem to be the most fun to learn. This backfired on me a few years earlier which you can read here.
Drinking in Japan 
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