What not to ask 12 year old boys in class...

Today in two classes, I had boys with nosebleeds.

The second time it happened, I asked the class (in broken Japanese), "This is the second boy that's had a nosebleed in my class today. Why?"

I was imagining it had something to do with all the hay fever that people were suffering. Instead, the girls remained silent and the boys eagerly piped up,

"It's because of you sensei!"

"What?" I asked, "What do you mean it's because of me?"

The boys got very excited and started saying something in Japanese that I didn't understand. I asked "What does that mean?"

Meanwhile, the girls remained silent.

Suddenly, I remembered reading somewhere that in Japanese manga, nosebleeds are used as a euphemism for, well, a certain type of attraction. I needed to end this conversation quickly.

"Ooohh, it's because I'm scary! You're all scared of me."

From the back of the class, one of the boys said "No, sensei, it's because you're cute."

"Well, aren't you a nice boy. OK everyone, turn to page 13 of your text book and please repeat...."

Roll Call

You die! You Suck!

It feels really strange calling that out in class. But in fact, they are the names of two of my students this year; Yudai and Yusaku.

A piece of paper soaked in pee

You just know it's going to be a great day when your school schedule declares it to be "Urine Analysis Day".

Yep, time for the school's annual health check.

While a full medical is not high on my list of fun things to do, I still get one every year in Australia. Unlike the one I'm subjected to at school however, it is done in the privacy of my doctor's office and with someone who has full knowledge of not only my own, but also my family's medical history. The school one is a generic, everyone has the same type of test.

To be honest, I'm not sure why we have to have them. I have asked, but was given an answer along the lines of "just because".

A problem I find with the school health check is that it is supposed to be confidential, and it is for all of the Japanese staff. For us native teachers of English (NTE) however, there are language difficulties. There is no way we can read the questionnaire and so have to sit down to answer the multitude of questions to our boss. Last year, in the staff room, in front of one of my male New Zealander workmate, he asked "Are you menstruating now?".

In my first year at the school, after answering all the questions, we had a blood test (they made a terrible mess of my arm), our weight taken, our heart monitored (and I was left the next day with a chest dotted with bruises), our waist is measured (though not our hips, which hardly gives an accurate waist to hip ratio for this curvy western woman), hearing and sight checked, retina photographed, blood test, blood pressure checked, a chest x-ray and of course the urine test.

Ahh... my personal favourite, today's namesake - the urine test. Bear in mind that all of these tests are not been done in a doctor's office or hospital, but rather within the school. The first couple of years we were handed a plastic cup and a strip of paper and sent off to the girl's toilets. We pee, soak the paper, empty the cup, and then come back, down the school corridors, passing students eager to say hello, with a piece of paper soaked in our own pee. Welcome to Urine Analysis Day. I find it interesting that it's called that rather than "Health Check Day", but maybe everyone else is equally as traumatised by it as myself, so that's the part that sticks out. Honestly, I've been having nightmares about it for the last week!

Another part of the day's fun was the TB x-ray. The machine came in a van which was driven onto school property. Once in the van, I was asked to take off my bra (because of any metal parts that are in it). I tried to wrestle out of it but not given much privacy by the radiologist. All the while I was in front of an open door, screened only by a thin curtain flapping in the wind with the baseball team on the other side.

This year, I'm seeking permission from the school to be excused from the x-ray. For personal reasons that I feel very strongly about, I am avoiding any x-rays unless in an emergency. Even though Japan has low rates of TB, I can understand and admire their reasons for wanting to be cautious. I'm asking if I can instead take a TB skin test. In my own time, at my own expense. I should get the answer on that one tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me.

Today's health check was actually quite quick and painless. I filled out the for with the help of one of the female Japanese teachers with the rest of the NTEs. We kind of just copied answers off each other. My friend laughed at how silly it was to be cheating off a friend on a health test. In the nurses room, our height and weight was measured, eyesight, hearing and blood pressure checked and then could use the bathroom in the nurses office for the pee test. All done!

The last couple of years, I've been given the all clear with just a note telling me that I should "change (my) life". Let's see what I get this year!

The End Is Coming!

It's nearly the end of the Japanese school year. I've just taught my last classes. I still have a couple of weeks until holidays, but they will be mostly filled with test marking and admin stuff.

I was sad to say goodbye to some of my students. My last class on a Friday afternoon was a delight to teach. I had the cutest boy in the front row, a tiny little thing, but what he lacked in size, he made up in confidence. I loved his responses to things I would say to the class. Once I asked "Do you want to play a game?", I got a half-hearted reaction from the class. So I asked "Do you want to do a test?" The little sweetie in the front came out with a really loud "No way!". Another day, when it was time to do a test, I said "Let's do the test", his reply, again very loudly was "Let's not!" You've gotta love that.

Another boy in the same class was a big beefy character. I love to tease the kids so when I was going around the class asking future tense questions, I asked this boy "Will you kiss a boy tonight?" His brow furrowed in consideration and in Japanese he said to himself "Mmm.. I don't think I will.." The class erupted in laughter. His friends pointed out "She asked if you're going to kiss a boy, A BOY!" Defensively, he turned around and said "Yeh, I know, but she's asking about tonight, that's the future. I don't know what's going to happen in the future!"

I'm happy to say some of the kids have told me that they'll miss me next year, as I they'll have another teacher. My favourite reaction though was from my Domestic Violence Boy. He yelled out "NOOOOOOO.. But I loooooove you Melanie! I really, REALLY love you! Really I do! I love you sooooooo much!" It's a nice way to finish a year.

How to have a bad day and How to make it a little better...

How to have a bad day

• Be in February - When my friend Joan lived in the UK, she used to call this month "Slit-your-wrists-February". After a couple of months of the cold and not being outside much, now I've hit February I'm so over it and know that I still have weeks until it's going to start getting warmer.
• Be a Tuesday - I have my least favourite high school class on Tuesdays. By half-way through the lesson, I feel the need to check their pulse, by the end, I feel the need to check mine. While on Mondays I have my least favourite junior high school class, I have my best high school one the same day, so they even out. On Tuesdays, they are all kind of duds.
• Be a rainy day - not only is it cold, grey and dreary but it also means you can't ride your bike to work, so have to leave early to walk there in time.
• Be tired due to not enough sleep and nightmares the night before due to stress.
• Start your day writing tests.
• Start your first class breaking up a play fight just in time to stop a kid's head being split open. This is after you've already yelled at them to stop. Yell at them again and hurt your throat.
• Notice that the curtains in your classrooms and teachers room are the same colour as what you imagine what body odor would be if it had a colour.
• Have a series of high school presentations that are so bad you feel your very life essence being sucked out of you. The worst, going for ten minutes and you realise at the end, you have no idea what they were talking about.
• Resist the temptation to slap a kid across the head for laughing at a student during his good presentation.
• Be cold despite the fact that you're wearing your mountain-climbing long thermal underwear under your jeans, two pairs of long woolen socks, disposable, stick-on "sock warmers", a thermal under-shirt, a long-sleeved turtle neck shirt, a vest and a lined woolen coat. AND you're in your teacher's room.
• Record two listening tests and be so cold in the recording room you can no longer feel the tip of your nose or your fingers despite the fact that you're wearing the above plus a down-filled jacket.
• Have a pile of marking sitting in front of you that you know you should be doing even though all you really want to do is curl up and go to sleep.

How to make your bad day a little better

• Use your brand new, thermal lunch box for the first time and have a yummy warm lunch at work.
• Get handmade cookies and chocolates as an early Valentine's Day present from a student.
• Have a student give an inspiring presentation about his time at the World Scout Jamboree and how meeting other non-native English speakers who didn't care about the mistakes they made with the language made him feel more confident in speaking.
• Know that you have a Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix at home that a friend brought back from Guam for you. Plan to make them tonight and surprise your husband when he gets home.

How's your day going?

The Temperature Today...

.... in the female teacher's bathroom at school....

2 degrees Celsius

I told you it was cold!

Domestic Violence

I've renamed my "Help Me Help Me" class to the "Domestic Violence" class. I think it's a name I've stolen from Badaunt, sorry Badaunt, but it's a name that fits so well with this group. A lot of punching goes on, but it's all between friends and strangely, they seem to enjoy it, both the hitter and the hit-ee.

I feel like I probably should get mad at them, but I don't feel angry at all. They make me laugh.

A lesson with them can go something like this;

Student, pointing to his friend; "He's M, he's M"

I look at him confused, ""M", what do you mean "M"? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know, "M", he's "M"!" The student then punches his friend really hard in the shoulder and explaines, "See, he's "M", I'm "S" and he's "M"".

I just shake my head, laugh and walk away.

Cold

As in, I have a cold and I am cold.

And I'm very grumpy about it.

It seems like I'm on some sort of six-weekly cold cycle. That's how often I've been catching them lately. Other than the obvious I-feel-crappy-so-I'm-grumpy grumpiness, I am grumpy about the fact that I am cold. All day. Every day. Well, at work at least.

The staffroom I sit in all day when I'm not in class is really not comfortable, and most of the time, it's downright freezing. I rug up as much as I can taking into consideration that the classrooms are warm and if I dress too warmly, I'll sweat in class. At my desk, I wrap my bottom half in a blanket, wrap a pashmina around my shoulders, wear disposable toe-warmers in my shoes, drink hot tea and still I get waves of cold shivers running up and down my back. I swear it's because I spend the day feeling so cold that I get sick.

Today is the first time that all of the heaters in the room have been turned on. There have been days when only two of the five heaters are on and we've sat and shivered all day long. I know it's not just me, two of the other foreign teachers I work with feel it too and they are from cold cities.

I wonder, do the Japanese teachers feel cold as well and just not complain? Is it a matter of the Japanese ideals of gaman (perserverence) and shoganai (it can't be helped) being at play here?

I don't think it's a Japanese thing. Wayne has said that the staffrooms of the schools where he teaches are lovely and warm. I don't believe it's even a (my school name...) thing either. The high school teachers rooms are also very cosy. It's this room. There is one person who decides how many heaters can be turned on on a given day and everyone else has to live with his decision.

There are official heater and airconditioning turning on days in the year and that day is abided by regardless of the temperature. Last year, the heating-turning-on-day was December 1st, so when I came to school on the third and fourth, I was dressed expecting the room to be warm. It wasn't. There were no heaters on at all, a day or so later, sure enough, I was sick with a horrible 'flu that included loosing my voice and having to take time off work.

So not only do I get to be uncomfortable all day at work, I then get sick and get to be uncomfortable with those symptoms at home too. And then, top it off with the stress of possibly loosing my voice.

If I wasn't drinking tea in an effort to try to warm myself up, I would not drink at all here. Going to the bathroom is almost like torture. It's outside, freezing and the water to wash hands is so cold it's painful. Sadly no Japanese heated toilet seat for this school. And I won't get started on the lack of availability of anything warming to eat for lunch......

I really enjoy my job, I like teaching, I like my students, I like the teachers and staff I work with. It's just such a bummer that it is such an uncomfortable place to work in for parts of the year.

Love Triangle

As we've just finished exams and only have a couple of weeks until holidays, we've been able to do a few fun lessons with the kids. One activity we're doing with the high school students is giving them a sheet of paper with three pictures on it and asking them to write a story. The aim they are told is to write a funny story.

There is one in particular that I love from today's class. Before I get to it, I should explain the characters... Melanie - is obviously me and Sam, Adrianne and Mr K other English teachers at the school. I've left the mistakes in and copied it as is;

Sam said, "She is mine. Her eyes are shining. Her name is Melanie. But she has a husband. She is outgoing to love. She has sexy body. I always fall in love with her. I was wallow in her everyday."

But he kissed with Adrianne. The kisses is very passion. I have never explained such a sexy and pleasure kiss. I am steeped in luxurious pleasure. I can't live without her body. It was true.

Ah..... Which is better, Melanie or Adrianne? Melanie has perfect body. But Adrianne has perfect body too. But it is important to honest to me. I want to the most is Mr K. I was homo.

Exam Answers

We're on the downhill run to the holidays now! Yah! Just two more weeks to go and then about three weeks off. Not sure what we're doing yet, but thinking of going somewhere for a few days. Does anyone have any suggestions? I want to go somewhere I haven't been before and I've done the big sites and cities.

We've just finished the last exams for the year and there were some answers that brought a smile to my face. I thought I might share....

From Junior High, in answer to the questions;

"Who cooked your breakfast this morning?"

My breakfast eat my family.
My breakfast cooked my mother.
I cooked my mother.
Cock brakefast is my mother.
It's dreakfast cooked my mother this morning.
It my mother cook to for breakfast

Where did you do your homework last night?

I homeworked in the hoom last night.

Where did you brush your teeth yesterday?

I brashed my teachers in the bathroom.
I washed the thieves in the bathroom.
I brashed my pea in the bathroom.
I blash your teach in the kitchen.
I brush south in the bath yesterday.

In one question the high school students had to describe Sam's and my personalities. Some of the results were;

Melanie is cheerful. She is big voice and her smile is cute.
She is cheerful because her class time is very interesting and exciting.
She is like rabit because she is very praty.
Melanie is very cheerful, because she is loved everyone.
She is cheerful and easygoing, because her smile is beautiful and she makes us happy.
He is gentle. He always listens my boring and not-well-English story happily.

The things they say

A gem from today’s interview test;

"My grandfather is strange. He tells me not to study....... He really likes sake. He drinks too much. I think he will die of cancer of the liver."

And on a totally unrelated topic... KitKat in Japan comes out with new flavours each season. I have to say I'm in love with the latest - Cookies and Milk KitKat. The KitKat wafer is covered in white chocolate that is filled with crushed chocolate cookies. Yum!

Interview Test Time

I never did get around to writing up the rest of my teaching days. It's been a busy week. On Monday and Wednesday, I had extra classes scheduled in and on Tuesday I had a recording session for the junior high practice and listening tests. On top of that I've been catching up on marking and been attacked by hordes of students every day before school, after school and at lunch times as they want their interview test preparations checked.

This testing period has gone so fast! We've started interview tests today! Our students are graded in three different area; their classwork, an interview test and a listening test. Each is worth a third of their final score. We conduct interview tests a week before their listening test.

This interview test is pretty cruisey for the junior high kids as long as they have prepared. They just have to tell us a little about someone from their family, half of it being in past tense. The previous two tests they had 16 questions to answer in 2 minutes, so the process was quite manic.

After the interview tests and listening tests are finished we still have a couple of weeks left of school. The junior high classes will be doing grade-free Christmas based lessons and games, so it's a lovely festive end to the year. And then... holidays! Yah! Wayne and I aren't going anywhere to far these holidays in a bid to save money. I'm really looking forward to it though as I have so many craft and design projects planned.

Bring on the holidays!

Fridays

I enjoy Fridays, and not just because it's the last day before the weekend. The last day for us native teachers that is, the Japanese teachers and students often have school on Saturday. I like Fridays because I have two junior high classes that are a ball to teach.


My first one, the first period of the day are really smart, attentive and energetic. There are no personalities that really shine out more than the others, but they are all sweet. One girl is tiny, about the size of a small seven year old. What she lacks in size she makes up in energy and has an infectious smile. Today in class, the students were doing an exercise where they had to interview many of their classmates. One boy came to tell me that he was finished, he had filled the paper. I told him that was great and asked if he could go and help some other students. He happily said yes and then I got a series of bows from him as he walked backward to the other students and said thank you many times. I can't imagine getting that from a twelve year old Australian student.


My second junior high class is in the last period of the day. It's my favourite junior high class of the week. It's funny really, I start, first thing Monday morning with my least favourite class and finish, last thing Friday afternoon with the best. The dynamics in this class are great. I put it down to the fact that the alpha male lived in America for a number of years and has excellent English. All the other boys want to be just like him, so they work their butt off and compete to do better than him. It really makes my job easy. One boy, H, is a little strange, but keeps us all amused with his antics. The girls in the class are a delight and we often laugh at how crazy the boys are.

In between the two, I have a high school class. They are mostly great except for one girl that gets on my nerves a bit. She talks the whole way through the class.

I'm tired by the end of the day though as my last two classes are back-to-back and are on opposite sides on the campus, so I always have to dash to make it in time.

Adrianne teaches one of my students from last year. I remember him fondly for just how truly dense he could be. In an interview test he produced "My mother.... my mother.... my mother cooks eat me" to the question "What club do you belong to". At the time he was so proud of himself for getting out the reply. Well today, Adrianne showed me a piece he had written about medicinal foods.

"I would like to try ginger. Because, I want to do a lot of poop and I want to make my poop a good shape."

Ummm... thanks for that information......

Thursdays

I've been meaning to write about my classes for a while now, so here goes, day-by-day.

I work at a private secondary school. It's difficult to get entry into, co-ed and contains both junior and senior high schools. I teach the first grade of each. It's a good combination actually, as the junior high kids are so genki, they're fresh, their excited and excitable. The high school kids are old enough and have enough English to be able to talk to about things and to joke with, so their lessons can get interesting.

At our school, they do three types of English each week, I teach the third component, communicative English. In junior high I concentrate on phonics and am a pronunciation Nazi. But to their credit, my students now know the difference between a (l) and (r), a (b) and (v), can produce a good (th), exercise the muscles in the face, mouth and tongue to get the right sound and are now starting to lip-read. I'm so proud!

So, Thursdays. I have three classes, first, third and fifth periods.

My day starts with a high school class. They are a little different to most of my other high school classes, as all the students are new-comers to the school. They haven't been formed into this school's mould yet and I have to remind myself at times, that they haven't been doing this style of class for three years previously like the other classes have. A number of the students in that class have lived overseas. One in Singapore, one in France and another recently returned from a year's home stay and studying in America. The class has a high level of English as long as I don't ask them to volunteer an answer. Then I'm only greeted with the tops of every one's heads while they stare at their desks, and silence. I think it's because the kids who have come back from other countries are self conscious that they might make a mistake and the others are too embarrassed to speak in front of them. Other than that, they are mostly a good class. The girl that lived in France loves to talk to me and is a great student and one boy really makes me laugh. One day I told him that our next class was going to be a fun games class. He asked if we could have a party and have cake. I told him that sure, if he wanted to bring cake, I'd be very happy. He then told me, in very careful English "No, I would like to be treated to some cake". Cute!

My second class of the day is a junior high lesson. The kids in this class are so polite, they are just adorable. They laugh at my silly jokes (and really, what teacher doesn't like that?), try really hard and when completing a worksheet will raise their hands and say in very enunciated English (very rounded and proper), "Excuse me Melanie, how do you spell....." There are lots of "please"s and "thank you"s during that lesson. In today's class we were covering vowel digraphs so they delighted in being able to yell out "oi" and "oy". Every now and then, we broke out into a "Oi, noisy boy!" and their faces just lit up.

My last lesson of the day I have nick-named my "Help me, help me" class, as that's what a number of the boys yell out all lesson. They're not a "good" class, but they are a lot of fun to teach. One of the boys always makes me laugh. Let's call him "T". T has a lot of energy in class, though I can't say it's alway focussed where it should be. He sometimes talks in class, but if I turn to glare at him, he whacks, hard, his friend that he was talking to, tells him to "shut up" and then turns to me with a butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth smile and tells me "He's a bad boy." I should get angry, but I just can't help smiling. The girls are a delight, as they are in most of my classes. One girl, Y, is a great student and came to me with a piece of writing she'd done, all marked out with pauses and inflections just in case she needed to present it to class. Another boy doesn't always do a lot of the classwork, but always stops me in the halls for a short chat in English whenever he sees me. His English is good and he will usually come up with something smart and funny to say.

Today, now classes are over for the day, I'm busily trying to finish writing a test and catch up on my marking. It's been a good day.

Struggling

I'm finding it hard going today. Thirteen days behind schedule, I'm trying to give up caffeine.

I've never been a coffee drinker. I've tried, I love the smell of coffee but have never grown to like the taste. My preferred source of caffeine has always been tea and chocolate.

I have been attempting to give up chocolate for the last 13 days and with only a few minor stumbles, I've done pretty well. I needed some emergency M&Ms when I was stressed the other night. Today, I'm trying the switch from lovely caffeine containing black tea to herbal. I can tell you, my organically grown, fair trade, peppermint tea just isn't cutting it. Don't get me wrong, it tastes great, it's just not giving me the kick I need right now.

My throbbing headache may or may not be because I haven't had my hit but regardless, I gave up chemical substances on the first of September as well, so no painkillers for me. Gone too are peanuts, Diet Coke and marshmallows. It's hopefully all in a good cause though. I'm attempting to stop my future children (no, not pregnant now...) inheriting my pain-in-the-butt food allergies and basically give them a good start in life.

I did have a lovely perk-up today though. I got my student feedback of my teaching back. I did well I'm happy to say. My favourite two comments were;

"Her body is full of kindness" and "Her smile is very good, her English is pretty good." They help take the headache away.

Not on speaking terms

I'm not talking to my husband. That's kind of ok though, as I'm not talking to anyone. I'm voiceless. I'm without voice. Well without much of one anyway. I can get words out quietly, but it hurts and if I try to project my voice, it just comes out like bad feedback from an amateur rock concert.

A voice is something that really comes in handy when you work as an English teacher. At school, we are nearing the end of student interview tests. I have about 280 students that I teach each week and during interview test week, I well, interview them each for about 2 minutes at a time.

Sam, who I teach with, was kind enough today to help me out. He did all my roll calls, did all the pre-test explanations and taught half of a normal lesson that we had scheduled in. So I managed to make it through the day, only having to postpone the listening test recording that we had to do. I have 3 more classes to interview tomorrow and then I don't actually teach for a week. I'm hoping it will hold out.

I must say though, I hate being sick in summer. I hate being sick anytime, but at least in winter you can snuggle into bad and drink lots of hot tea and have lots of warm soup. Instead, I came home early from school today and fell asleep on my futon in a sweaty heap.

I don't really know why I'm blogging all this. Maybe because I love talking, haven't been able to do it all day so need to waffle on about something. Off to bed now and hoping I wake up with a voice.

How do you comment....?

Every now and then as a teacher, you come across some work that you're really not sure on how to comment.

This particular gem came from a student in response to the question of what they thought visitors to Japan would find surprising;

"I think a visitor to Japan might find lowness of
men's toilet. In America or Europe men's toilets are installed
higher. Japanese men's toilets are installed very low because Japanese men
are shorter than European and American.

On the contrary, if we use the toilet in America,
we have to turn our Johnsons upward."

I am curious guys (as opposed to girls...) is it true?

Camera Club Clique

This year at school, I joined the Camera Club and these are some of my camera club girls.

Kindy germs

Wayne taught at kindergarten last week. He always enjoys the day but comes home exhausted. And with germs! Without fail a couple of days after his monthly visit to kindergarten he gets a cold. He suffers for a day or two and then in his ever-so sharing manner, passes it onto. I then feel rather awful for about a week. So now, I'm spending a precious free day in Golden Week feeling like I would be much happier if I could just chop off my head.

I have my very own Baikinman (Bacteria Man). Thanks Wayne! To his credit though, he does take good care of me when I'm sick.

Why Translating Software Doesn't Work...

As I said in a recent post, I've been drowning in marking. Thankfully, I'm getting towards the bottom of the pile. I also mentioned that Jason is getting really good at writing the kanji for "translating software" to remind the students NOT to use it. Here's an example of a student's work that used the software;

I break a top in many case and brust into laughter and I write it and am character ized by a style of special signs such as a letter. (onomatopoeia.) movement, line, a concernation line, and comics are the general term of a style to express information for creation mainly on a picture and a letter. It can point at comics work as entertainment in a narrow sence.