Anyway, yesterday this kid came into the staffroom with a book and proceeded to squeak at the JTE for about ten minutes while pointing at the book and at me. Eventually it came out that he's studying for an optional standardized English test and wanted to practice with me. I agreed to stay for half an hour after school, and somehow another student got roped into the lessons as well. They basically wanted to be able to practice talking with a native speaker for the interview portion of the test. The other student was a boy who I already liked because he also seems to try hard in English class. He's tall and pretty good-looking, although he's always the only one in his uniform when the other kids are wearing PE clothes, and he made the sentence "It's hard for me to run fast" for an exercise the other day (unlike the other students, I think he tries to actually communicate instead of pulling words out of his ass in hopes that it will fit the grammar point). Nerd Boy referred to him as "my friend" but I'm not sure if that's just because that's the only word they've been taught for "classmate." They're an odd pair but they seem to get along all right. Cool Kid is taking the Level 3 test, which is the level kids should ideally be at by the time they finish junior high school. Nerd Boy is taking the Level 2 test, which is where they should be when they finish high school. I have no idea why.
Anyway, first I asked Nerd Boy to tell me about his hobby. Cool Kid started clawing at his face and sighing, though I'm not sure if it was because he didn't understand or because he was like "oh GOD lady don't get Nerd Boy started on TRAINS." But because it was the first question and they hadn't quite warmed up yet, all he had to say on the subject was, "Each train has a different face. I like to see them." (Not sure how literally I was meant to have taken this.) I then had to repeat the question "Have you ever been to another country?" about 10 times for Cool Kid, but each time he said "Sorry... one more time?" instead of "EHHH WAKANNAI MURIMURIMURI," which in and of itself was a nice change. Pretty soon we were discussing San Francisco, Obama, natto (Cool Kid loves it; Nerd Boy hates it), J-drama and the pros and cons of living in the country vs the city. Cool Kid asked me what I thought of the JTE, and I dodged the question, but Cool Kid had no problem telling me he didn't think he was a good teacher. To me, he's a really nice guy and easy to work with, which contributes to this being my favorite school overall, but I can only imagine that for the rare Japanese kid who is actually interested in learning English, he must be a bit frustrating. It was the first time I actually felt I was serving a purpose by being here.
So the test is in two weeks, and until then I'll stay after school once a week for interview practice.
Other students who brighten up my day:
- An ichinensei at my other visit school who's as cute as a button (he reminds me of Ben at that age) and greeted me with "OH NO! MY COLA!" the first time I taught his class. Today I made them draw cats for a "How many?" lesson and he presented me with Kirin-Cat, the best of the bunch.
- A ninensei at the same school who hates English and always disrupts class, but does it in the most entertaining possible way for me. During my self-intro he was dancing instead of listening to me, so when it was his turn to be asked a question I asked him "Do you like... DANCING?!?!?!" and imitated his moves. He turned bright red and mumbled "noIdon'tlikedancing". The next week he wasn't reading along with his group, so I did the "I'm watching you" gesture and he and a special ed student absolutely lost it and would not stop doing the gesture to each other and me for the rest of the day.
- Two sannensei girls in Dreamy Sensei's homeroom class at my base school who led all the sports day cheers and are attached at the hip. One of them has a boy haircut, is confident and outgoing, and doesn't like English but likes America and wants to travel there. The other one likes English and is more shy and giggly. They're adorable and make me wish I had a best friend like that at their age.
- A kid in the same class who I have resolved not to pay attention to because he is SO disruptive, but who absolutely cracks me up with his antics. Last week I taught him the phrase "Calm down!" and now I remind him of it whenever possible. A really quiet kid who sits in the row behind him wrote "I am sad to see Mr. Minami" for an assignment, and when I asked him who Mr. Minami was (I assumed it was a teacher), he pointed to him. I think that's worth a sticker.
