Sarah substitute teaches for Japanese elementary kids

The head of an English language school, Mr. Nakanishi, called me the other day asking if I’d be willing to substitute for one of his English teachers. We met to discuss the subbing assignment and he gave me the materials (books, CD’s) for the lessons. I was a bit apprehensive: the job was to teach 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classes and all the regular English teachers at his school speak Japanese. I figured that it was only two hours of teaching (this is an afterschool program) so it couldn’t be that bad. He and I agreed that in any case it would be an experience

The afternoon of the subbing, Friday, I gave myself plenty of travel time. The school was in Shiga prefecture which is the prefecture (region) next to Kyoto. Mr. Nakanishi had warned me that the train trip involved a very confusing changing of train lines from the subway to the commuter rail. I think he was really most worried that I would become hopelessly lost and not show up. He said he’d had many English teachers get lost in the train journey, so he cautioned me multiple times about it, insisting that I ask someone on the platform if the train stopped at my stop. Fortunately thanks to his incredible directions I managed to navigate the confusing switch with no problems. I even managed to arrive at my destination station with five minutes to spare. 

As I waited at the station and watched people drive in, I hoped that I would recognize Mr. Nakanishi. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I am still having trouble distinguishing faces of Japanese (men especially) I have met. I really find it bizarre, but it seems that across cultures, all people look the same until you get more used to distinguishing features. Definitely in the Gambia, I felt this way at first and I have heard some of my Latino students joke that “all white people look alike”, so I guess it’s universal. Funny. Anyway, I thought that I recognized a man who drove up in a white car, but I figured that since I was the only gaijin (foreigner) in the whole station, that he would make some motion towards me. Eventually my phone rang and it was him, in the white car. Ha. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t recognize me or whether he was wondering why I hadn’t come right up to his car…in any case, we made the connection.

We got to the school and immediately had to remove our shoes and put on the ubiquitous plastic slippers often in waiting rooms of places where shoes are to be removed. Unfortunately my slippers were way too wide for my feet and I could hardly walk up the stairs without having them fall off every step. The result was me slowly inching up the stairs trying desperately to keep the shoes on. Mr. Nakanishi scurried up to the top and looked back at me with a slight puzzled expression—I’m sure he wondered why I was so slow coming up the stairs. Once I finally reached the top we removed our slippers to walk on the carpets in our socks. I was really glad I had carried some little Isotoner house slippers with me so that I could put them on. (Thanks for buying these for me, Mom!) I don’t think I could manage to teach or at least feel professional in my socking feet!

We entered the classroom, and Mr. Nakanishi scurried around trying to set up the room, while I tried to put the books and CDs in order so that I would have some semblance of organization when the kids arrived. Moments later, small boys bounded into the room and began addressing me in rapid Japanese. Fortunately, Mr. Nakanishi was there to explain who I was and that I was from America. “Amerika!!” the boys exclaimed excitedly. They seemed truly shocked about that.

There were only about 10 students in each class, but I was really glad that Mr. Nakanishi was there since my Japanese is way too limited to conduct proper classroom management. I had asked Mr. Nakanishi when we met about the students’ behavior and he replied that some were a little “mischievous”. Sure enough, the first grade boys ended up being quite mischievous indeed. It was actually pretty funny. The first graders who spoke, in theory, the least amount of English were definitely the most excited by the lesson. They blew me away with their knowledge of food names in English. As we practiced flashcards they shouted out, “hambagaa!” “orange/oranji” “cherry” “peach”, etc. Of course, it did help that many of these words were borrowed words in Japanese and therefore similar. As I went student by student asking them to say the name of the item on each flashcard, the little boys turned it into a game of their own, shouting out their answer with funny expressions, jumping up, holding their arms out, etc. I would have been more worried about their behavior, but Mr. Nakanishi seemed to find it amusing, so I chose to be amused, too. The first graders really starting losing it when it came time in the lesson to run to opposite sides of the classroom, depending on whether you liked or did not like a certain food. Oh boy, let’s just say that once they understood what we were doing there was ostracizing of the only boy who didn’t like hamburgers, kids running from side to side repeatedly, kids rolling on the carpet in the middle, kids squealing…yikes. I ended that game as soon as I could!

Next came the second graders and they seemed to be more able to understand me. We worked on the words “on, in, under” using pictures, flashcards and props. I think this lesson was the most successful since most kids were able to say these words in context by the end of the 40 minute class. They especially got excited the lesson when they realized I was asking them to stand “on” their chairs and then get “under” them. Fun!

Definitely the girls were better behaved than the boys in the 1st and 2nd grade classes. True to many stereotypes of our gender, the girls were generally shyer, sometimes to the point that I couldn’t hear them when individually asking them their name or a word, etc. On the other hand, in each class there was at least one girl who was really on top of it and quicker than all the others. The third grade class was all female so I thought it would be a lot easier to manage. The only problem was that Mr. Nakanishi left me alone for this class and unfortunately, the book for this class was really too advanced. While the 1st and 2nd grade books seemed fairly appropriate for the level of the kids, the 3rd grade book was a bit too difficult. It was frustrating and if I had been their permanent teacher I would have done some serious restructuring of lessons. However, I was just a sub and therefore was supposed to stick to the book. The result was that most of the girls just drew pictures on their books and colored instead of participating. Hmm. I wondered how much of this behavior was typical. In any case, there was one adorable girl in the third grade class who was really being earnest in trying to learn and did I appreciate her!

After that class, I couldn’t help myself and told Mr. Nakanishi that I thought the book was too advanced. He replied that it wasn’t really a problem since the kids would get more English later in school and that the 4th grade book was on a similar level. I am unaccustomed to educators neglecting feedback that something needs to change, but, alas, this was beyond my control.

So, all in all, I guess the classes went pretty well considering…considering that I speak almost no Japanese and the students speak almost no English…considering that I am not used to teaching elementary kids…considering that I’m not an English teacher by training…so, yeah, I guess it all went surprisingly well. Mr. Nakanishi told me on the way back to the station that he wished he could give me a regular job (sadly I am not here long enough—1 year minimum--to be on contract for any English school). He did offer to me a chance to tutor for a family in the area privately, so maybe that will work out. For today I was just happy to get paid to have an interesting cross-cultural experience!