As I sit here drinking my glass of shochu and watching, for some reason, CSI NY, an ambulance screams by outside. A lot of them pass here since there's a hospital just down the road. I've heard them all my life, but they are most distressing to hear late a night. What kind of crap went down for someone to be taken by an ambulance at this time at night? Hate to think of it. Hate to think that one day one of my own family members could be taken away in one of those things.
One was, actually, my sister, many years ago. Quite frightening but maybe more frightening for my parents. Now that I have a son, I can sort of imagine their frame of mind as they crested the hill and saw that swarm of flashing lights and my sister stuck in her date's car. Hell, when my son even looks like he might fall over even though he's sitting on carpet I get a little tense. Having children is certainly a blessing but when I hear ambulances roaring by in the night, I get a little freaked out.
I need to calm down.
Maybe another drink?
Definitely no more CSI!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Negativityisms
When it comes right down to it, I just hate being negative.
And I hate other people who are negative and bring me down. I work in an industry that requires its participants to be outgoing and outspoken and if one is not so then no amount of care, consideration and/or instruction will have any effect. Students who lack confidence, who are generally negative about their own ability to use English as a tool for communication, annoy me to no end.
"How can that be, Lance? Teachers aren't supposed to think like that!" some may say.
Well, maybe so, but these students pay their own way. They come here of their own volition (though possibly of their parent's volition, too). Why do they endure such torture every week, paying handsomely all the while? Why, indeed.
But it is this negativity that drives me up the wall. I have lost my patience with students who make no effort to make any progress. I dread their classes, knowing that they probably have some far-fetched idea that this one block of 60 minutes each week will magically transform their otherwise dense brain matter into a language learning device ripe for reprogramming, that stepping foot into this small office space will award them smooth acquisition of English.
The funny thing I noticed the other day, as I thought about these students and their rather hopeless situations, is that I have become negative, too. Their ignorant refusal to use in class the English they already know, to spend some time outside of class pursuing language opportunities, to engage in conversations longer than one syllable -- all of this has just pushed me over the edge.
I have simply run out of patience for these types of students. I suppose you could say I have been blessed with a very few number of honest-to-goodness students intent on learning and acquiring English. I can see Purpose in their twinkling eyes, can feel their growth in the conversations they have with me, can literally see their progress as they compose longer journal entries, read more complicated texts, maintain personal dictionaries. Indeed, it's these students that have turned me off from the rest.
But at the end of the day, I am still the teacher for ALL of my students, even the ones that should not be wasting their parents' hard earned money. Though despite my myriad efforts to motivate them and their equally countless ways in which they have managed to escape learning something, I am bound by my private little oath as an educator not to give up on them as long as they are willing to try.
But when do I know if they have given up? How do I know when they have succumbed to their own relentless negative growth?
When is enough enough?
And I hate other people who are negative and bring me down. I work in an industry that requires its participants to be outgoing and outspoken and if one is not so then no amount of care, consideration and/or instruction will have any effect. Students who lack confidence, who are generally negative about their own ability to use English as a tool for communication, annoy me to no end.
"How can that be, Lance? Teachers aren't supposed to think like that!" some may say.
Well, maybe so, but these students pay their own way. They come here of their own volition (though possibly of their parent's volition, too). Why do they endure such torture every week, paying handsomely all the while? Why, indeed.
But it is this negativity that drives me up the wall. I have lost my patience with students who make no effort to make any progress. I dread their classes, knowing that they probably have some far-fetched idea that this one block of 60 minutes each week will magically transform their otherwise dense brain matter into a language learning device ripe for reprogramming, that stepping foot into this small office space will award them smooth acquisition of English.
The funny thing I noticed the other day, as I thought about these students and their rather hopeless situations, is that I have become negative, too. Their ignorant refusal to use in class the English they already know, to spend some time outside of class pursuing language opportunities, to engage in conversations longer than one syllable -- all of this has just pushed me over the edge.
I have simply run out of patience for these types of students. I suppose you could say I have been blessed with a very few number of honest-to-goodness students intent on learning and acquiring English. I can see Purpose in their twinkling eyes, can feel their growth in the conversations they have with me, can literally see their progress as they compose longer journal entries, read more complicated texts, maintain personal dictionaries. Indeed, it's these students that have turned me off from the rest.
But at the end of the day, I am still the teacher for ALL of my students, even the ones that should not be wasting their parents' hard earned money. Though despite my myriad efforts to motivate them and their equally countless ways in which they have managed to escape learning something, I am bound by my private little oath as an educator not to give up on them as long as they are willing to try.
But when do I know if they have given up? How do I know when they have succumbed to their own relentless negative growth?
When is enough enough?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Suggestions
At the suggestion of my wife, I am starting up this blog again. Our sister-in-law has been keeping one about her son, mainly for the grandparents and friends, so this has evidently spurned my wife into a sudden interest in blogs. Okay, maybe not a real interest, but after I told her that I had one she gave me this look like "What ELSE are you keeping from me...?" She suggested I start it up again. So, here I am.
And that's the funny thing about suggestions: lots of people give them, but maybe only about half follow them. As a EFL teacher, I have first hand experience of this. I have suggested and still do continue to suggest a variety of ways in which my students can improve their English proficiency. Living in Japan does not afford many opportunities to naturally use English outside of a classroom, so I would assume that any suggestion I give would be taken to heart.
Alas, I am sadly mistaken.
Out of the 15 or 16 high school to adult EFL students I teach, only four or five have followed my advice, and only one or two do so regularly. My question is, why?
Why, if they are paying about $90 a month to visit my class once a week, do they not invest an equal amount of time outside of class to develop their skills? Why do they come to class with sheepish grins on their faces saying, "No, I did not do any vocabulary study this week?"
It baffles me, but only to a certain point. If I worried too much over it, like I did when I first started working in this English Conversation industry, I would probably drive myself crazy. I have come to the conclusion that many of these older learners are not really pursuing English to fully master the language - it is merely a fun and slightly expensive hobby where they can meet up with similarly aged people to exchange a few words in a foreign language. Research studies I have heard about seem to suggest that learning a foreign language keeps the brain active and stems the oncoming tide of senility. Maybe that is what they are hoping for. If that is the case, then I guess they are at least following SOMEONE'S suggestion, albeit not mine.
No worries, though. They keep coming each week, smiling either because they are happy or because they didn't do any work, but smiling nonetheless. And they pay. And that's the bottom line, I guess. It SHOULD be whether or not they are really gaining anything from their experience in the class but come on... At the end of the day, we all know that money walks, even if my students can't talk.
And that's the funny thing about suggestions: lots of people give them, but maybe only about half follow them. As a EFL teacher, I have first hand experience of this. I have suggested and still do continue to suggest a variety of ways in which my students can improve their English proficiency. Living in Japan does not afford many opportunities to naturally use English outside of a classroom, so I would assume that any suggestion I give would be taken to heart.
Alas, I am sadly mistaken.
Out of the 15 or 16 high school to adult EFL students I teach, only four or five have followed my advice, and only one or two do so regularly. My question is, why?
Why, if they are paying about $90 a month to visit my class once a week, do they not invest an equal amount of time outside of class to develop their skills? Why do they come to class with sheepish grins on their faces saying, "No, I did not do any vocabulary study this week?"
It baffles me, but only to a certain point. If I worried too much over it, like I did when I first started working in this English Conversation industry, I would probably drive myself crazy. I have come to the conclusion that many of these older learners are not really pursuing English to fully master the language - it is merely a fun and slightly expensive hobby where they can meet up with similarly aged people to exchange a few words in a foreign language. Research studies I have heard about seem to suggest that learning a foreign language keeps the brain active and stems the oncoming tide of senility. Maybe that is what they are hoping for. If that is the case, then I guess they are at least following SOMEONE'S suggestion, albeit not mine.
No worries, though. They keep coming each week, smiling either because they are happy or because they didn't do any work, but smiling nonetheless. And they pay. And that's the bottom line, I guess. It SHOULD be whether or not they are really gaining anything from their experience in the class but come on... At the end of the day, we all know that money walks, even if my students can't talk.
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