The Newbies

I’m sitting in the office drinking coffee on the first sunny day in a week. The quality of the coffee at this office has gone downhill since Coffee-Sensei got transferred God knows where at the beginning of the new school year about a month ago. My first day back after spring vacation I didn’t see him, and I was worried but thought it was possible he had just taken the day off. The next day I didn’t see him, and I knew that he was gone – moved to another school to make coffee for some other desperate, caffeine-addicted ALT, and never again for me. Alas.

In addition to the unforeseen disappearance of Coffee-Sensei, I also have a whole new round of ichinenseis. Since it’s the only grade I teach here, everything kind of changed around me (except my desk position, which is in a prime location to watch everything else that goes on in here…including when a fresh pot gets made). I have new (to me) JTEs to teach with and all new students. The ichinensei class, at this school and my others, has surprised me with how immediately genki they all are. Nearly all the classes have, of their own accord, asked me questions, wanted to chat in English, and are generally less shy and more confident in their English than the ichinensei class last year (they are now my badass ninenseis, and they have improved a lot since nine months ago).

I think part of it is due to the fact that I’m not the new kid this time around, which means that the students don’t have to put up with me not having any idea what is going on and not understanding anything they try and say to me in either Japanese or English. I can now confidently answer questions like, Do you watch anime (Sometimes), and, Who is your favorite Japanese artist (Arashi). I know what One Piece is, and I know that Chopper is everybody’s favorite character. I also sing AKB48 at karaoke. These new kids have the advantage of not only possessing more English ability than last year’s models, but also having an ALT who is not fresh off the plane from America and has way more shared cultural knowledge with them. Now, I (most of the time, at least) know, when they repeat an English question back to me in Japanese, whether it is what I am asking or not. It’s a lot easier for me to help them say what they want to say in English because I know what English words in a Japanese accent sound like, I know what kind of things they generally want to know, and I understand a lot more of the chatter in Japanese that fills in the spaces while they struggle for English translations. We are both doing better, I think.

I’ve already had a couple instances of students being really excited that they could make themselves understood to me in English, and that is what makes me happy too. They already understand quite a lot, and I’m excited about having a full year of classes with them to get even more confident.