When I do the shows or workshops, as a trick to get the teachers, and kids, to speak louder I always say things like “Oh, but in Okayama yesterday they were so much louder” and it works like magic. And people always ask where the best places are. To be honest the best kids have been in Nagasaki and Niigata, and worst response from kids I’ve ever had was in Oita! So it was great to be able to come down here and give the teachers a workshop to try and bring things up to speed a bit!

I only had 2 hours in the morning with 60 teachers, so it was very much a “basics” workshop that involved lots of jokes, skits and tricks to change the teachers’ perceptions of English education and get them in the right frame of mind to make English work in their schools. And they were actually really, really good.

Then in the afternoon things didn’t go quite so well! A big part of my workshop is about curriculum development and if you only have one hour a week or month, you have to make it count, and what’s the point of teaching something the kids will never use? Teach them things they can actually use when the ALT comes to visit ( which is the only chance most of them will have to speak English) But in the afternoon workshop, which was done by teachers of the local schools, along with “Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?” ( which is OK) and “The Hokey Pokey/Cokey” ( again a nice song to do), they were doing the most abstract stuff like “Pease pudding hot” and “Ring-a-Ring-O’-Roses”. I mean, what is the point of doing those songs? Once in a while maybe, but not if it takes up a tenth or more of the year’s lessons. The teachers say it is to have fun. But that’s what the playground and playtime are for! In the lesson it has to be fun, but it also has to teach something useful. The kids can’t use English about the Black Death, and half the ALTs there don’t know what “Pease pudding” is! It’s like learning learning Japanese and studying a weird character like “kurage” or “anko” without being able to say “konnichiwa”. But as that’s what most of the lessons are spent on, it’s no wonder the 6th graders have been doing English for 4 years and can’t speak it. They were also teaching mistaken English like ” I like red dog”, which really is inexcusable when there are correct, proof read curricula out there. As one of the teachers said “There is no one correct way of teaching English”, to which my reply was, “Yes, there are many. But there are also many ways that are just wrong!”

The sad thing is that the teacher in charge today is a really, really nice lady who tries 110%, but I always get the feeling that schools like this are trying too hard to re-invent the wheel, rather than learning from the experience of other schools. And it’s a tricky balance for me, on one hand giving them confidence to try things in their schools, but on the other having to say that some things just don’t work.

So tonight’s beer fest was really important as it’s over beer where you can be really honest with people, and in the morning they’ll either forget it, or take it on board, but either way there are usually no hard feelings! Some of the teachers were really keen on the stuff I was saying though, especially the reasons for doing this and the whole meaning of International Understanding Education. And the lady in charge here is mega genki, so hopefully we can get a curriculum in place that will get the kids able to communicate in English!

Then a few more beers, and a few more, and a few more and I think I finished drinking with a couple of the JETs at 2 AM! But I really felt I’d earned it!