Chapter 20: CHAPTER TWENTY

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PART IV

COLLEGE

CHAPTER TWENTY

“John! John! Remember you saying I didn't have to come in this morning?”

“Yeah. Like I said, Dave, September tends to be a slow month.”

“Ha, it really turned out to be lucky for me though! I was able to use the time to go for an interview as an English teacher at a junior college in Kyoto this morning. And they hired me! Their one native speaker English teacher suddenly up and told them last week he was quitting before the second semester begins in October. It's so close to my apartment I can even commute there on my cub! And I only have to teach there four days a week so I can still come down and teach here on my days off and in the evenings if you need me. When I'm not taking a trip on my cub during their nice long vacations, that is! Man, am I glad I got my B.A. in English Literature!”

“Dave! Dave, calm down for a second, will you? Is it for a part time or a full time position?”

"Uh, I didn't think to ask. There's a difference?”

“Only the difference between Purgatory and Paradise”

“Huh? How so?”

“Look, as a part timer you only get paid a fixed amount for each class you teach or possibly a fixed amount per month for each class. Either way you get no extra benefits. With a full time position you get six month's bonus pay per year, paid vacations, health coverage including paid sick leave, automatic tenure as soon as you start and pension benefits if you work long enough.”

“My God, that big a difference?”

John nodded as he looked a the teaching schedule board. “Because it's our slow period, you've got a two class break coming up after your first class today. Why don't you call them up and find out?”

“I'll do that. Thanks for the advice, John!”

“John, I got it! I got it! A full time teaching position with all the benefits you mentioned! They only wanted me for a part time position. But I told them I couldn't accept that because of what you warned me about part timers.”

“So, how did you get them to offer you a full time position?”

“Well it turns out when I asked, they reluctantly admitted the guy that suddenly quit on them was a full timer. But I think the thing that clinched it was the fact that the fall semester starts next week on the first day of October and they were really desperate!”

“That's great, Dave! Why don't we go out and celebrate at our favorite watering hole tonight?”

We clanked our large draft beer mugs together chanting the obligatory “Kampai!” and took a couple of big belts.

“Well, Dave, congratulations! Sounds like you've landed a really great position. Who knows? It might turn out to be a lifelong career for you.” Then he sighed. “You know what, Dave? I envy you. I really do”

"You envy me? But, John, you're an exec! And you get a salary, not just paid by the lesson like me.”

“Yeah. But that's all I'll ever be. Oh, maybe they'll promote me to administrator for all their schools in the Kansai area. It'll mean more money, yeah. But it also means I won't be able to teach any classes at all. I want to teach, damn it!”

“Well then, why don't you try getting a teaching position at a junior college or a university like me?”

Dave sighed again. “I tried. But unlike you, I didn't graduate from college. I had to quit at the end of the first semester of my junior year because I ran out of money. And I was majoring in Economics, not English Lit. All the schools I applied to said they couldn't hire me full time because without a B.A. Degree, they couldn't get me a teaching visa. All they could offer me was a part time teaching job because I was at least a native speaker.”

“Well, why didn't you take the part time position then?”

“I did. But there were two native speaker full timers there, too. And on their bonus days, they would take me out to splurge with them at their favorite restaurants and bars. That's how I learned how far apart part time teaching positions are from full time jobs. The only thing they bitched about was the department meetings they had to go to. But they only had those once or twice a month and usually none at all during their long vacations.”

“But still you were teaching. Why did you leave if you wanted to teach so much? Didn't you enjoy your classes?”

“Oh, I liked the teaching and the students fine. But then the school decided they only needed two native speakers. And remember what I said about full timers getting automatic tenure? Not to mention I was low man on the totem pole. And I really didn't know how to teach then. The textbook they gave me was based on that God damned audio-lingual method. I kept the students chorusing sentence after sentence without communicating with them at all. Those damn sentences started bouncing around my brain even when I was asleep!

"So what did you do? "

"Well, I saw this Help Wanted ad in the Japan Times about needing native speaker English teachers at a new direct method school their chain was opening up here in Osaka. I'd never heard of the direct method, but thought why not? And it turned out to be the best decision I've ever made careerwise. And that's how I how I got this job at our direct method school. But Dave, unlike me you've been trained here in how to teach one on one using the direct method. You'll need all that training in your new job, so you can adjust to having classes with twenty or thirty students in a class.”

“Hmm. Is it that different?

“In the beginning, yeah. But you should get used to it fairly quickly. Just expand on what we've trained you to do here. Question answer, question answer. And make sure your students are always understanding. One thing I've learned the hard way is if there's no communication, there's no language being learned. That's what language is for, after all. A way for us humans to communicate. Not just reciting set sentences over and over again -- something we'd never dream of doing in our own native language.”

“I guess I'm so used to the direct method you taught me here, I've never thought of any other way of learning a language. It just seems so natural.”

“If you remember that, even when you're teaching twenty or thirty students, you should get the hang of it pretty quick.”

On the long commuter train ride back to Kyoto filled with lots of drunken businessmen because of late hour, I thought about what John had told me. Was teaching twenty or thirty students at a time going to be that different? And could it really lead to a lifelong career? Well, I sure as hell was going to find out.

And damn quick too!

Submitted: February 21, 2023

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