Chapter 24: CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"David, I've been getting a lot of comments about your classes from your students."

"Good ones, I hope."

Fumie nodded. "Excellent ones as matter of fact. It's quite unusual for the students to come up and make compliments to me about a faculty member who has only been here for two weeks now. Actually, it's unusual for the students to come up to me at all. I mean, I am The President."

"Have you tried teaching classes yourself? Maybe that would show them you're actually quite approachable."

"In the first few years I had to. When the school went bankrupt before me, all the teachers had to leave, too. I taught English. And, yes, the students did come up to me quite often. But they always talked to me in Japanese because they knew that was my native language. So as soon I could, I hired a native speaker so the students would have to speak to her in English after class, too."

"Her? I thought you said the teacher that suddenly quit on you was a man."

Fumie nodded. "That was Alex. He'd only been with us for the first semester of this year. Rachel on the other hand, stayed with us for four years and was quite popular with the students. But then her husband got transferred to the head office back in the U.S. Quite a big promotion for him according to Rachel. But let's return to the compliments I've been getting about you from the students."

"All from girls, I'll bet."

"Almost all, yes. But there was one boy who came in with a compliment."

"That's a surprise. Which one?"

Fumie checked her notes. "Ah, Watanabe-san."

This time my head jerked back in shock. "Watanabe?! But all he does is say 'I not know' every time I call on him! And scowls at me when I do!"

"But you are calling on him. None of the other teachers do."

"That's because I call on all my students in my classes. And not just once, but three, four and sometimes five or even six times in one class. I keep track of each time I've called on a student by jotting a dot in her or his square for that day in my attendance book."

"Does this come from your direct method way of teaching?"

"Mostly. But I'm having to adapt it quite a bit for a class with so many students."

"I'd still like to hear more about this direct method of yours. "

"Well how about me giving you a lesson using direct method next time? Do you speak any German?"

"A few words is all. Why?"

"Because the direct method can start off with a student who speaks absolutely none of the target language. Your English is far too fluent to do it effectively in English. And you know very well I'm a native speaker of English. My German is very rusty, but it should be enough to give you a sample beginning lesson anyway."

"I'll look forward to it."

"And I'll look forward to seeing if I can get Watanabe-san to actually respond to my questions."

My next class with Watanabe was Thursday afternoon . He was the only boy out of three to show up that day. After I had asked several of the girl students questions about the story, "Mr. Watanabe, how did the man go to his office that day?"

He still didn't stand up, but ". . . umm, by train? . . . ah, teacher?"

"That's right!"

He actually broke out into a sort of smile, while I almost broke out into a sort of heart attack. My God, he's actually trying!

Later, when I got to the students asking me questions part, "Mr. Watanabe, would you please ask me a question about the story?"

He actually stood up this time! ". . . Umm, why he go office?"

"Why did he go to his office."

"Why did he go his office?"

"Because he works there. Good, Mr. Watanabe." Almost beaming now, he sat down.

Still in a state of shock, I jotted a large dot in the box next to his name for that day.

My next class with Watanabe-san was the next Tuesday. And this time all three of the boys showed up. I called on him for my first question to a boy student. He stood up and gave me a close to correct answer. And when I called on one of the other boys, he didn't stand up, but at least gave me a very garbled answer that was wrong. But, my God, he was trying, too!

Submitted: August 05, 2023

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s

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B Douglas Slack

I spent quite a few years as an instructor while in the Navy. I've always favored the direct approach rather than any other method. It seems to get through to the students better. Of course, my students were ordered to the school and that makes a little difference. Good chapter.

Bill

Sun, September 10th, 2023 2:04pm

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Glad you favor the direct approach, too. I was once in a school where I had not one but three classes with very thin walls between us and they were all blasting away with choral responses while I was using the direct approach with four of the school's lowest level students. I do think though I was actually able to improve their English somewhat in spite of all that noise. Glad you liked the chapter, too.

Ken

Sun, September 10th, 2023 2:25pm