Good English

I normally don't post about school because I figure that most of the stuff is a little boring. But since I am here to teach and all, I thought I should write up a recent triumph.

So English is not exactly popular with the 1st year students. It's the last year it's required, and they only get Oral Communication once a week, so most students either talk through class, sleep, or just sit and stare at their desk. <-- these are all possible because there is no real discipline in Japanese schools. A teacher cannot send a student out of the classroom because the student has the right to be in class. Who cares if he's ruining the class for everyone else, you just have to ignore him. I usually kick the chairs of the sleeping students to wake them up [don't worry, nothing drastic- just taps to wake him up]. And for the talkers, I walk over and ask them questions.

Now, my bad class of 1st years has the lowest number of English enjoyers of all my classes. It also has several of the very bad boys- the ones all the teachers at school know about. Yet somehow, they've slowly turned around. The worst kid has become one of the most active participants. Sure, he's still loud and disruptive, but he's actually working with me instead of trying to derail the class. Good. Even better is the crazy fact that this class had the highest scores on their most recent listening test. This is a big shock-- my JTE was shocked, I was shocked, there was shocking all around. Following up on a pretty successful grammar absorption by my 2nd years, I am feeling that teacher-glow. "They get it, they actually understand!"