The Cunning Coder Blog

Spring break is finally over and I just wrapped up my first week of classes.  It’s interesting being there at the beginning of a new school year, as when I first arrived they were already halfway through their textbooks.  It’s also interesting to be the with the new first year students as they just start embarking on their English education.  Though I had some of these students in elementary school, this is their first truly structured English learning experience.

All my students seemed re-energized, like they were ready to learn again.  Toward the end of last term they seemed to be losing steam and will to participate, but now they seem to be ready to go.  I only had a few teachers change on me (that I know of so far), so largely my routine hasn’t been interrupted too terribly much.  The only significant change is that my number of office days is going to plummet starting in May.  The elementary schools have stated they don’t care which ALT visits the school, so I’m going to be visiting some of my coworker’s schools, and she some of mine.  These make it so there really isn’t a day in the schedule where there isn’t a visit of some kind.

Community courses are also going to be starting at the beginning of June and run until mid July.  It’ll be once a week, on Tuesdays, running from 6:30-7:30.  The community courses are both enjoyable and annoying.  They are fun because I have free reign on my lessons and can choose to teach them however I please.  They are frustrating in that, because it’s all mine, I have to do it all, beginning to end.  This time around I’m going to do an advanced beginner’s course on business English.  Here’s to hoping it goes well!

So the school term is finally over for me and we’re heading in to spring break!  I only have 2 more visits to schools left and they aren’t for usual class, they are for the Hokkaido English Challenge.  Four of my students have opted to enter, and they will be taking the exam on this Thursday, with a practice section on Wednesday.  I’m really looking forward to them seeing how far they’ve come.  When we initially started, even some of the questions in the Q&A section would give them great pause, but now they can best me at 20 questions more often than not.

With spring break coming, of course, there’s also the changing of the guard in the Board of Education.  I’ll be interested to see who’s staying and who’s leaving.  We have a party this Wednesday to bid farewell to those who will be departing so I imagine I’ll find out in short order.  I’ve grown to like many of my coworkers, but I’m sure even if they move on to other areas of city hall that I’ll come to appreciate their replacements just as much.

The only thing that could make this whole situation better is if we had some time off during spring break, but unfortunately the ALTs are required to be in the office doing whatever we can.  Kinda annoying, but if they want to pay me 150,000 yen to sit on my butt and do next to nothing, I won’t complain.

The next school year is looking like it could be quite busy, I have maybe 4 days the entire term without school visits, whereas I used to have at least 1 day a week which was set aside for prep.  The change has come as a result of the elementary schools requesting more and more visits from the ALTs, to the point where those schools are no longer really assigned to a specific ALT, but we both will manage them whenever we can.  This translates to me adding about 4-5 more schools to my load (I was already at 10).  I’m sure it’ll be rough in the beginning, but I’ll adapt.  In the end, I’m sure it’ll work out for the best, especially since I had so many office days where I didn’t know what to do with myself before.  I just have a small lingering fear that this is going to produce the exact opposite problem.

Well my rough week is finally over and it doesn’t look like there will be anything even close to that coming up this month.  I’m very thankful for that and am looking forward to working at a slower pace again.

It’s hard to believe that this school year is almost over.  I’ve been having a lot of my “final lessons” with my third year students, and it’s always a sad thought to me.  I don’t get to visit any of my schools more than once or twice a month, but the students still are important to me in their own way.  I’m worried about how some of them will fair in high school, and others I’m confident are bound for success.  Whichever category they in, I just hope they continue to do their best.

The saddest thing I had to come to terms with this month, in regards to teaching, was that, for some of my students, this would be their last English lesson ever.  I thought that was kind of sad, because these students always seemed to be the least inhibited about putting themselves out there in English class and always seemed to be enjoying the class activities.  I’m sad to hear that they’re not going to be able to continue with those classes they loved so much, and I hope that I made their last exposure to English a positive one that they’ll remember well.

Seems rather odd posting this right after a post relating to a really good day, but this one wasn’t so great.  It’s actually just the first part of this week in general that made the entire thing a rather lousy experience.  Let’s start with the beginning!

So usually I’m supposed to hear from my teachers three days before the lesson I’m going to participate in with their plan/outline of what they want to do/cover.  I didn’t get the plan for Tuesday and Today’s class until Monday afternoon.  My work schedule is from 8:45-4:30.  I got back from Monday’s lesson at 1:30 to be greeted with the lesson objects for Tuesday and Wednesday (Today).  This school, as usual, is one where I run the class and their normal teacher is just there to assist with translations of instructions when needed.  It started with a visit to the elementary school classes, which I probably should have guessed would have been the same material as always, but figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt.  So I had 3 hours to prep the materials, games, instructions and the like for that lesson.  It was actually more like 2 and a half, because it was my cleaning day on Monday which takes up from 4-4:30.  That left me with the middle school prep for the next day after class.

This particular school is between 45 minutes to an hour away depending on weather and road conditions.  I had to be there by 9:30, so I ended up leaving as soon as I arrived to the office (around 8:30).  I do my teaching thing, eat lunch, etc.  Classes ran until 1:30, we got back around 2:40 because we had to stop for gas along the way.  I also am told I have a meeting with a separate teacher at 4:00.  So that means I have 1 hour and 20 minutes to prep for the middle school lessons.  The middle school day was a 4 class day, but I only had to prep 3 of them.  I frantically threw a plan together and had my meeting, all was well.

Then is D-day. Wednesday is also a 2nd period day at the same school.  Except this time classes didn’t get out until 2:30.  We got back to the office around 3:20.  Then at 4:20 I had to head to another school to help some students study for an English competition until 5:20.  When I got home, I made dinner and then relaxed until 8:30, when a couple friends came over to practice English until 9:30.

I’m absolutely exhausted right now and thankful as all hell that I don’t have to prep anything for tomorrow or Friday’s lesson.  It’s been a busy week so far, but that sure made the time fly by.  It unfortunately did have a rather negative impact on my mood, and I hope that anyone whom I was short with, snapped at, or bitched too doesn’t hold too much of a grudge against me.  If any of you are reading this…  I’m sorry.

Today was one of those days that I’m really happy I’m an English teacher.  My students weren’t shy to the point of not communicating, they tried really hard, and they made did everything in class happily with absolutely no fuss.  These are the moments that make me feel incredible being a teacher.  Though this isn’t the career I’d like to stay with, it’s times like these that I will always remember fondly.