For my CIP this semester I worked as an assistant English teacher in a local elementary school. I chose this CIP because I wanted to know what is the nature of Japanese schools. Also, I grew up taking English as Second Language courses so I wanted to compare the English classes taught in Japanese schools to the classes I have had.<\/p>\n
I go to this elementary school every Wednesday or Friday afternoon and rotate between four classes of the six grade. I was surprised to find out that each class has one teacher who teaches all the subjects. As a result, the progress and difficulty of the English classes are largely depended on different teachers. For example, one class is more advanced and is learning things outside of the textbook while another class sticks to the same page for two weeks just because they have different teachers. Another thing that strikes me is that even though it is an English class, most part of it is still conducted in Japanese. For instance, the listening comprehension has Japanese translation following right after the English part so the students would wait for the Japanese part and ignore the first English half. Also, students do not practice writing in English at all and they write answers in Japanese on the textbook. There are a lot of differences between the Japanese English classes and those that I took in Chinese elementary school. Japanese elementary school starts learning English\u00a0in the fifth grade but we started learning basic English such as “A for apple” since the first grade. And the teachers are in charge of teaching one subject in about four classes and make sure that\u00a0everyone are on the same page.<\/p>\n
Japanese elementary students are a lot louder and in disordered than I expected. Japanese students talk among themselves during classes and the teachers will just look at them and wait for them to quiet down. When I am reading the listing comprehension materials out loud I have to raise my voice so that the students would pay attention to me. Sometimes the teachers will apologize to me after class for that. I discussed\u00a0about this situation with my host family and they told me that if the teachers do anything aggressive in correcting students they would often get sued by parents and lost their job. I also learned that Japanese elementary students wear short pants even in\u00a0winter. When I talked to Nakamura sensei in class she told me that there is this concept in Japanese that “\u5b50\u4f9b\u306f\u98a8\u306e\u5b50,” or kids can still\u00a0play around even\u00a0in cold wind.\u00a0However, in terms of language, the Japanese students are more polite. For example, after Japanese students finish cleaning classrooms and when they return their keys they say \u201c\u3007\u5e74\u3007\u7d44\u306e\u3007\u3007\u3067\u3059\u3002\u3007\u3007\u5ba4\u306e\u30ab\u30ae\u3092\u304a\u8fd4\u3057\u306b\u6765\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002\u201dat the door of the teachers\u2019 office. Another example is that when students finish answering a question they will ask the class “\u3069\u3046\u3067\u3059\u304b\u3002” and the class will answer “\u3044\u3044\u3067\u3059\u3002”<\/p>\n
Overall the students and teachers were very nice to me and it was a great experience to see how Japanese elementary schools actually are. And I was able to compare the English classes taught in Japanese schools to the classes I have had. The students sometimes come talk to me after class and after I dyed my hair they taught me the word “\u30a4\u30e1\u30c1\u30a7\u30f3” which means one changed one’s image. I learned more about Japanese culture and made friends with six-graders and I hope I can meet those students in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For my CIP this semester I worked as an assistant English teacher in a local elementary school. I chose this C … \u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080