1st years are the best
It’s literally amazing the maturity level of these kiddies. Back when I was in school, the maturity level was like this (starting from the lowest maturity): 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade. Well, whaddayou know? It goes in order! But in my universe here in Japan, it goes like this (starting from lowest maturity): 8th grade, 9th grade, 7th grade (or ニ年生 = ninensei、三年生 = sannensei、一年生 = ichinensei). The most perverted ones are by far the ninensei. The most annoying ones are the sannensei and the best ones are the freaking ichinensei. I would never have expected it. They actually enjoy learning English! They also pay attention in class! It’s so freaking weird! It’s the twilight zone when I enter the ichinensei classroom, they’re not rude or anything like that. Blank stares are also at a minimum, which is extra nice 
.
But I usually have this problem of getting the kids to speak up or anything like that. So today, since my main teacher was absent, and because the students were doing an all-day self study, I decided to attend one of the other classes. I basically picked one at random, which turned out to be the Japanese students’ equivalent of English class in America. It’s called kokugo (国語). I had nothing better to do, so I brought my study materials along with me. I really enjoyed sitting in the class with everyone! I was a big distraction at first, just by sitting there, but that faded within a couple minutes, which was good. I was a guest in the class and I wanted to be invited to more classes and not get called out for attracting too much attention, which would have been all too easy.
I’ll just cut to the chase and say, I really shouldn’t be so self absorbed all the time. This whole time I thought the kids didn’t speak up because they were shy about English. Now I realize, that they’re just shy. Even though the entire class was in Japanese, asking kids to give an answer was just as difficult a task for this teacher. Even when she did get an answer, if it was from a girl, she had to walk up to the girl’s desk just to hear what the 服 she was saying. I don’t know why girls here enjoy talking under their breath. I thought they were just shy around me, but I learned that they’re just shy. I relaly should have attended other classes a long time ago, it would have helped me harbor less resentment towards the kids for giving me the blank stare. I thought they were mocking my Japanese speaking ability, or just the fact that I was foreign, they didn’t know how to react around me. But now I know, that they just don’t want to screw up and speaking up in class is a more difficult task for them than it looks. I will be much nicer from now on.
I also looked at the other course material they work on, like Math. The level of Math that the kids are doing is some pretty difficult stuff, like it’s really pretty far ahead than I would have expected. In some respects, a little more ahead than most kids in High School. So with them moving so quickly in Math and Science, I wonder why they almost ensure stagnation in English. For example, we learn like 8 vocabulary words every 2 weeks! That’s almost nothing! This is why, after 3 服 years, some of these kids can’t even spell the word “sleepy”~! There’s hardly any grammar review or practice and there is never any homework given. We spend most our time reading passages over and over and over and over and over again. Language learning in Japan is in a pretty bad state, seriously. All other fields are pretty top notch, but English is well near the bottom. They need a serious reformation in this field. It’s no wonder they hate English so much, it’s nothing but repitition and things that don’t make sense. They also don’t get enough practice to make sense out of anything. Also, we move so slow that it gets boring really quickly. What they also don’t realize is that Language Learning almost never provides instant gratification it takes months before one can actually string sentences together.
I just had to get this out of my system. The kids are really bright. I just wish it could be channelled properly. They have so much potential, it’s just the education department, couple with the textbooks, and the “no homework” rule just prevent kids from adequately learning the language. There’s a reason why everyone I talk to says they “hate English”. It’s been made too difficult to 服 understand and it’s not their fault.
Leave a Reply