The Present Perfect
...written on 2001-01-27, @ 15:04:11
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Fri January 26, 2001
"Oh no", I groaned. "Please, Buddah, not the 'present perfect'!" Unfortunately, no amount of flippings and turnings and wishings would make Chapter 12 in the 8th grade English text disappear. It was the present perfect alright.
Up to now, the English grammar points we have covered have been easy to explain and construct classes around:third person singular forms, adjective clauses, comparisons, past tense forms, etc., but here we were faced with trying to teach something that doesn't even exist in Japanese and to explain it in English. Ivan also had a note from Fred that said Ivan was to go to Ampachi to teach the present perfect and to "plan deeply".
I started digging through our grammar texts and game book and found the offerings there to be too complicated. At home, I hit the web and surfed til the wee hours of the morning trying to find suitable material.
I finally found grammar information that we could all digest as well as 4 games to hammer the points home. I faxed the info to Ivan who had already had to leave for Ampachi (I'm still laughing at the image of him clinging to the outside windows as he walked to the parking lot mouthing silent screams of "HELP ME!" )
In the car with Chiharu, the Ibigawa branch boss, I negotiated to have her teach the first half of the class instead of going with the original plan of having us (Lana was to help as well) go first.
Our first class of 8th graders were 19 in number. The boys were separated from the girls by two empty rows of desks down the middle of the classroom. This is pretty typical. When ever we do grammar exercises and games, rarely do the two sexes intermingle without persistent prodding from the teachers.
This first class was also very shy, and taking Toyo's advice, we toned down our energy so as not to frighten them. I think we tarried too long on the beginning intro and grammar explanation and didn't give them enough time to play Bingo, items that we subsequently remedied in the second class.
There was such a difference between the two classes! I was happy that Lana got to see it. The second class of 21 students greeted us with a robust "Good Evening" and the girls, still separated from the boys, clearly were the rulers of the classroom. What also helped was that we had been talking earlier to two girls from that class who had a strong ability in English and were anxious to speak. Lana and I cut the time for the intro and grammar points, since Chiharu had paved the way for us, and got into the "Have you ever played Bingo?" game and even had time for another game.
Lana was a great team player as well, chiming in with ideas as we prepared the lesson and then during class, prompting me to call on certain students that she felt needed the attention.
The class was over at 9:40, but many students stayed to ask the two Japanese teachers on duty many questions. Lana and I took off to clean the classrooms. We wiped the boards, the desks, vacuumed the carpets, and wiped the door windows (this is the duty of the teachers by the way, there are no janitors in our organization). Chiharu thanked us profusely and apologized for not having time to clean the branch as she should, thereby making our job harder.
Driving back we noticed that Chiharu was very sleepy. The night before she had been in a branch boss meeting that went from midnight until 5am. She also has a family to take care of, so she must get up early in the mornings to do that and then often comes to work before the 2pm starting time.
Lana was trying to keep Chiharu entertained and awake with some stories and started to remark that she had the next three days off in a row. An automatic reflex in me kicked in and I made a "don't say that" sound which Lana grasped immediately and was able to change the course of her sentence. Later I explained that the Japanese teachers rarely get time off, that when they do they don't take it, and we just feel better not emphasizing our take on the subject. After all, wasn't I talking to one of the teachers just yesterday who said he dreaded free time because he was bored because he didn't have any work to do?
Chad had remarked earlier in the office that he thought that we were changing the work ethic attitudes here. He thought the Japanese were learning to take it easy, to which Ivan replied that he had noticed that we all were coming in earlier and staying later, so really, who was coming around to whose way of thinking?