Well, it's been a while since my last blog. I've had to take four days of barely useful Japanese lessons, but was also able to participate in two fun-filled days of summer school with junior high students from around Kobe. As a chaperon, I helped lead students around to four different rooms filled with different games and activities for practicing their English. In the afternoons, I had the pleasure of listening to their English presentations.
Given that many of the students had only had one or two full years of English training, I was quite impressed. Their pronunciation still needs work, but many of them displayed a tremendous amount of creativity and assertiveness. The variety of tone and topics was also impressive. I have to remind myself that these students are the "cream of the crop," however, and I also have to keep in mind that not a single student from my school attended the event.
This is my challenge: I have less than a year's time to try and make English a relevant subject for my students. What can be accomplished in a year's time by an outsider who speaks in a foreign tongue and seems immune to the pressures of normalcy in Japanese society? What can be accomplished in a school that has necessarily made discipline the primary focus of daily interaction? What can be accomplished by someone who is only an "assistant" language teacher? In a couple of weeks, I'll begin to find out...
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