Welcome/farewell

Last night was the welcome/farewell party for new and old English teachers at Meiwa.

With such a welcoming sign (both Puss’n’boots and the one beneath the light), how could I have anything but positive feelings for the restaurant chosen…

In case it’s too small to read, it says “I eat, I drink, Therefore I am”

We discussed where other teachers were going that night – the PE teachers and math teachers were also having their parties. The PE teachers went to a Chinese restaurant and the math teachers went to an izakaya – drinking establishment. All but one of the math teachers are male. Nishioka sensei, the head of English, had decided on a place without nomihodai (all you can drink) because the rest of the English teachers are female. It was a wonderful place, with many courses including quail! Unfortunately Nishioka sensei and I were the only ones to enjoy the quail…everyone else was too queasy about it – and that was without knowing what it was. I asked the chef later specifically so I knew what I’d eaten.

The english teachers from left to right, around the table: Maeda sensei, Iwahashi sensei, me, Nishioka sensei, Mori sensei, Ogami sensei and Hirano sensei.

Maeda sensei used to work with the special needs students. Now she’s been transferred to a school for disabled students and loves working there. I didn’t even know she was one of the English teachers. Strangely she was invited (as a farewell I guess) but the teacher who taught English as an elective at school, was not. Though maybe he just said no. *shrug* Or was out with the math teachers – I think that might be his main subject.

Iwahashi sensei is new this year, and apparently very relieved that I speak Japanese. Still, she makes an effort to speak to me in English most times, which is impressive. (Just because they teach English, doesn’t mean they speak it and I have one teacher who has yet to manage to string together a whole sentence in English for me) I think I like her, but that’s about all I’ve worked out. She always has plans ready for me to follow, which is nice, but so far they seem to be very centred around games. I’m wondering if she’ll be one of those teachers who always use my classes as game classes – which is okay to a point, so long as the games utilise what I have to offer in aural and oral guidance.

I found out the Nishioka sensei used to smoke, and when he gave up he gained a lot of weight (he was 85kg and 102cm around his middle, wearing size 96 pants which could not be bought in Japan – he volunteered this information, none of us asked for it!) He set about exercising, lots, and got himself back down to the trim teacher I know today. Maybe this is where his obsession with other people being fat comes in. He also started a discussion on the difficulties of my position, having to teach with so many different teachers. Turns out he spent a week team-teaching when he was in America and found it exhausting. He pointed out things such as personalities not always matching, having to get used to different teaching styles and being told so many different things that everything can get jumbled up. He was leading up to trying to get all the teachers to give me at least short memos to remind me what we were doing in their class – an effort I really appreciated. It was really nice to have someone acknowledge the difficulties of my position too, no, not just acknowledge, but understand. I often feel like the other teachers think I have it totally easy, and compared to them, I mostly do. But I do have challenges that are unique to my position and not necessarily noticeable to others.

Mori sensei is very quiet, and is the teacher who will come up to me just before class and say she has no plan, can I do something please. This time I have notice (she asked me last night at dinner) She is currently working with the special needs students, and doing her masters in something to do with education.

Ogami sensei will also get me to plan whole lessons, but gives me notice and this time round gave me a direction to go. She specifically asked me to do a lesson on the difference between katakana-english and english. She helps me out when I can’t explain stuff in Japanese (currently working with first years who have not learnt enough english to cope with me using all english – I do still say everything in both languages), and will emphasise points which she feels are of significance but otherwise lets me run the class how I want. It’s always challenging, but I come away appreciating the opportunity.

Hirano sensei is easy, if slightly boring sometimes, to work with. She’s very gentle, but her classes run well. She’s not the best person to go to when you’re feeling ill,being rather short on visibile sympathy, but she’s always good about letting me know what stuff is happening within the school and times when I could conceivably leave early without being missed – usually this is not said so much as implied by a grin and a wink and a nod of her head in the direction of the school gate!

Finally, this is the dessert sample tray they brought around at the end. We got to look at all the cakes, say which ones we wanted, then they took the sample tray away and brought back our individual cakes. Of course, I initialy thought the tray was for out table so I reached out to take the dessert I’d chosen! But this saved Maeda sensei and Iwahashi sensei the embarassment of doing the same – they too thought we had to take from the tray!