Monday:
Went to the teachers’ office at 10a.m. Little people were there. I was even asked by a doorkeeper “Where are you going?” I spent two hours in the office. When I left the building, it was almost empty. It was the start of the holidays. After the lunch, I evaluated students’ composition until the night.
The task was to write a memo to his/her manager. Most of the students’ memo had the same kind of mistakes that were very interesting. I made the whole script. It was like; a person, company employee, got two phone calls in the afternoon. At 3:00, the person got a call from one of business partners and made a long conversation. At the end it, the business partner asks “Please leave a message to your manager so that he calls me back”. And then at 3:30, another call came from a school teacher saying “Your kid got sick. Please come to the school to take him back to your home.” Student wrote a memo for this task. Interesting thing was that most students just wrote about conversation with the business partner (unnecessarily in detail). But they just forgot to write why he/she had to leave the work place. They should have written two things; one was asking the manager to make a phone call, the other was reason why he/she was not there. Out of 45 students, only two wrote these two things. Most wrote the business partner’s message only. Two students wrote just “I gotta leave” without mentioning the business partner’s message at all, which was worst. In a Japanese company, what is most important is to inform, to contact, and to consult. Not only Japanese language, I also have to teach them those business skills.
Tuesday:
I wrote a long email to one person in the morning. I have already forgotten what I wrote. I think that probably email has already been out of date as a communication tool. People here use SNS to exchange short-yes it’s really short!- messages. Actually I don’t like that short message SNS. Every time I got a message, I feel that I have to make a response within 3 minutes. It makes me stop everything that I am doing. Anyway after I finished writing email in the morning, I had just been evaluating and correcting students’ composition of Friday class. I finished it around 8p.m.
Wednesday:
Since the evaluation and correction of compositions were ended in the night before, I started PPT making for the next class. Common errors were misuses of postpositions of “-wa” for “-ga” and “-o” for “-ni”. I made some slides so that student could understand why “-ga” should be used for the subject that is unique and why “-ni” should be used for the object that is targeted by the action.
I went outside at noon to go to a grocery store. I bought some vegetables and a half kilogram of jujube. When I asked how a jujube tasted to one Japanese, she told me that it tasted simply, lightly, and naturally (I am not sure if this conveys the meaning in English, though). It is not so sweet. But I think it is better to eat jujube for my health than to eat 0re0 when I feel I want to eat something. Besides, it is not so sweet that the harmful insects would not damage it much. I guess so from my experience of gardening, and I hope that farmers of this country don’t use pesticide much for jujube.
Thursday:
I just kept making PPT for the class. I finished it at 7p.m. It took whole two days. It made me tired.
Friday:
I wrote another long email in the morning. For the rest of the day, I had been making a midterm examination for the composition class. For that class, I make the students write compositions as homework assignment. Writing takes time. I don’t want to waste time by making students write in the 90 minutes class. I do feedback in the first half, and give explanation the new homework in the last half. So students write their compositions where I cannot see them. Some students consult together, some use translation on the internet, and even plagiarize someone’s writings from somewhere. So I think it is necessary to do a midterm exam in order to measure the real writing skills of students.
Saturday:
I had just kept working in this one-week holiday. I sent some emails to my friends in the morning. So it was a kind of the first thing that I did other than job. After taking a lunch in my apartment, I went to a supermarket to buy 5 kilogram of rice. Actually I don’t like a supermarket in the basement. If a fire happens, many people would be killed because there are not enough exits and fire extinguish facilities will not work properly. So I just avoid going to such a supermarket. But I cannot find rice in nearby grocery stores. I have to go to the supermarket in the basement. Anyway, the rice here has a flavor that is rarely smelled from the rice in Japan. Probably if Japanese smell that flavor of rice, he/she wouldn’t like it. But I like it, not bad. It smells like very old time rice.
Sunday:
Yes, it is today. I tried making PPT of composition class which would be of the second week from now. I ate a lunch in the university restaurant, and then went to a grocery store. I bought tomato, onion, green vegetable, garlic, ginger, green bean, and 0re0. Perhaps I am an 0re0 addictive. But I am sure that I am not the only one who is 0re0 addictive. Anyway, when I got back my apartment, I felt I no longer keep working. Did I sleep on the bed one or two hours? I got up from the bed and started PPT making again. I couldn’t finish it but stopped at 6 p.m. I cooked my supper and ate it, and now I am writing this. Coming week will be a quite tough one to me. Until the start of classes for the first grade, only two days remain. I am a Japanese teacher with almost zero experience. How can I …….
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 