Life In the Happy Lane

Before I begin, I must apologize about the long hiatus. I've spent the last couple of months getting used to my new job, which I'll talk about in a moment. The new job means I have less time on the computer, which means I've had to prioritize other things over this blog. From this point in time, I'm going to try to dedicate more time towards this blog, but we'll see what happens.

My new job is going well so far. I now work for the prefectural government board of education as a native-speaking English teacher (as differentiated from regular English teachers, who are all non-native-speaking Japanese). I teach at a school in the southern part of Osaka prefecture.

Before I started work there, my predecessor gave me a sort of "transition call" to explain about the school. He said the kids were downright terrible, and the teachers just go through the motions. That scared me a bit; it reminded me of my time at a similar school a few years ago. However, once I started working there and teaching classes, I began to think that my predecessor was wrong, or at least the school wasn't a good fit for him. It certainly seems to be a good fit for me so far.

How is it different from the school from a few years ago? First, I have my own classroom - a "language lab", they call it, complete with a computer system, projector, sound system and monitors for all the students. I don't have to go to the homerooms and wade through hair curlers or manga. Second, at this school the students actually call me by my own name! At the old school, they called me anything but my name. Third, while the teachers do have a hard time with some students, overall there isn't the depression and sullenness that was prevalent among the staff at the old school. The teachers at the new school are friendly, bright and generally happy.

The students themselves are quite friendly. When I see them on the train or in the hallways of the school, they greet me and usually chat a little bit - usually in Japanese, but sometimes in English. I can't say that about the old school; the only time the students talked to me was when they were making fun of me.

That said, the educational level of the school is quite low, and it will be a struggle to get them to learn any useful English for communication. But so far I'm off to a good start.