This is How They Do Things Part 2
Part of Teaching in a Japanese School is Navigating a Cultural Minefield. This is part 2 of a story aboutgetting caught up in the office politics
“I think we need to talk,” I told her with a big plastic smile, showing a mouthful of coffee and tobacco-stained choppers. “You got a sec?”
As she sat there expectant, I was reminded of an incident that had happened a few years previously.
When I first started working for my company, I was told that they hired teachers for elementary, junior high, and high schools, and I was asked which I preferred. I’d told them anything, but an Elementary school would be OK. I’d had my fill of toddlers and pre-teen kids while working at an Eikaiwa (franchise English school). So, naturally, when I received my first assignment, it was to cover not 1, not 2, but 5 elementary schools. Temporarily, they’d said, until there was an opening at a high school. My commute to these schools was a hell of a daily hike (2 trains and a bus), but I did it for a few months.
Little did I know those mostly rich spoiled brats I taught at NEON in Shinjuku were atypical. The kids at these schools in Yokohama were like a breath of fresh air. They were so much fun that time just flew by. And the syrup on this sundae was my work day would end sometimes as early as 12 noon…
Can’t beat that with a baseball bat.
When the High School opening came along, I almost turned it down just to keep those lovely hours with the charming kids at the elementary schools. Something told me to stay...that I might regret this move. You know, that little voice? But my laziness, or rather the convenience of the high school, was too good to refuse. It was 2 stations from my house, which pretty much mitigated any time disparities. I could sleep an extra hour every morning, which meant a great deal with my sleep schedule, for I write best at night and often do so until the wee hours. An extra hour was worth its weight in Bluefin tuna.
And, man, was I glad I did. This High School was GREAT!
I thought.
It wasn’t an international school, but there were many exchange students from all over Asia, and most were English-speaking. There were also many English-speaking returnees (Japanese who had lived abroad for years) and high-level Japanese English students from all over Yokohama. So high that English classes were held entirely in English. I assigned and corrected essays written by students from Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and Japan. The students didn’t even wear uniforms. They could dress however they liked, as could the teachers. And the icing on this cake was that I was invited to play basketball with the basketball club twice a week, and we’d have full-on games!
The head of the Foreign Languages Department (They actually taught French, German, and Chinese at this school) was a woman named Ono-Sensei (not her real name). She was also an English teacher. She was sweet! She sat beside me, and every day, we shared a rapport I have seldom experienced in Japan. We loved films, especially those by Woody Allen and The Coen Brothers. She could even appreciate Charlie Kaufman. We REALLY hit it off.
I thought.
I helped her plan lessons, and we executed the syllabus she had put together long before I joined the staff. It was an agenda she’d created with the previous ALT, some bloke from England I'd never met, for he'd left the country when he left the company. The agenda included a trip to England with the students to spend some time in a High School north of Manchester. I wouldn’t be joining the class (phew!) because I had come there after the deadline for down payments. But Ono couldn’t stop talking about how much she looked forward to returning to Jolly ole’ England. She’d apparently done a homestay there when she was a young woman, some 30 years ago, and the impression has been a lasting one, molding her into the professional she is now. However, despite having been exposed to English as a career for over 30 years, her English was still only at a level where she could communicate and be understood, nowhere near fluent and heavily accented with Japanese.
“That’s nice,” I’d find myself saying to her constantly.
“Oh, you went to the Isle of Wight? Wow. That’s nice.”
Her accent wasn’t British, but she swore it was, and I didn’t argue.
(“Oh, I can hear it a little…wait…yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear it. Wow!”)
Anyway, this went on for a few months. Then, one day, while we were teaching a class, she was using me as a human CD Player ("just listen carefully to Baye-Sensei’s reading of the passage"), there was an incident.
One of the students, a Japanese one, a Returnee who had lived in England with her parents and had recently returned to Japan, asked me if I could repeat a word because she couldn’t quite catch it.
“Sure, which word?”
“I don’t know. Actually, there were a few words I couldn’t catch,” the student said in Japanese to Ono-sensei.
Ono-sensei responded to the student and the other students in Japanese: “Baye-sensei’s accent is a little strange and not standard. He’s American, and from New York, so those of you who are accustomed to the proper English spoken by the previous ALT will have to endure. I'm so sorry.”
She said this with smiles and nods to her students and me. I wasn’t nodding with her, but she probably thought it was because I couldn’t understand a word she was saying as opposed to my catching every other word and not appreciating what I heard at all. At the time, my speaking level of Japanese was deficient, and since I never had to use it at school- because enough people spoke English- it wasn’t likely to improve while I was working there. So, Ono had assumed I didn’t understand Japanese at all.
“I beg your pardon,” I said in English in front of the class. Ono looked at my face, searching for the smile I usually wore effortlessly, the one that wasn’t there anymore. It had been replaced by dismay and a little shock. Maybe even a little of my temper spiked to the surface. Her unprofessionalism was off the charts in my book. “Did you say my English was inferior to the previous ALTs? Maybe I misunderstood you…”
I hoped.
“Well, it’s your accent; the students are having trouble with…I’m so sorry!”
She was turning a deep shade of red at being busted, and I had to remember that I was not the boss in this room, so I quickly tried to cease hostilities and return to my role as an underling (and apparently foil.)
“Oh, kochira koso, it’s my fault…” I said. “I’ll try to speak more standard English if you like.” Then, I started choking on those words and sarcastically added, “I’ve watched a lot of Monty Python and listened to too many Beatles songs in my days. I’m sure I can tidy up my pronunciation for you guys.”
She was still in shock at my having comprehended what she’d said, knowing good and damn well she shouldn’t have said anything even vaguely disparaging about me in any language. But, I’d let it go and did my rendition of “My Fair Baye.” The students enjoyed my Eliza Doolittle gutter cockney accent and my Hugh Grant "Four Weddings and a Funeral" Queen’s English impersonation, which I used for the remainder of the lessons. I patted myself on the back for skillfully cleaning up the tension with humor.
I thought.
Later in the office, she apologized again, this time profusely. Even Moshi Wake Gozaimasen-ing and bowing contritely— the strongest "I’m sorry" I know of. Of course, I accepted it.
“I’m sorry I got upset, ” I said.
“Oh no...no, it’s all my fault!”
“But, I think more people are exposed to the accents used in America than in England, either through music, film, television, books, or magazines, so if any English is the standard these days, I’m willing to wager it’s spoken in America. You don’t think so?
“You’re right, I think.”
“Not that I agree that there is a standard English," trying to change the tone of the conversation from apologetic to more conversational. "But I think there was a time when the Queen’s English was considered the standard. I think today, however, that’s just not…realistic.”
“Hmmmm,” she replied, nodding. From that day until the end of the year, our relationship had one added element: mutual respect.
I thought.
I kept on thinking that until I heard the result of the questionnaire about ALT quality that had been sent to Japanese English teachers to fill out and return to my company. Mine stated that one of the teachers at the school-- no names, of course -- felt that I was not a good fit for their school. I did not live up to the standard of English excellence on which the school had built its reputation, and that person was afraid I would tarnish it somehow. And thus, I was not welcome to return there the following semester.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The company had put it to me as gently as possible to spare my ego and added that “sometimes these things happen without the ALT having a clue what would go down. This is how they do things, sometimes. We’ll find you another spot, don’t worry. You’re still in good standing with us.”
And that’s how I'd come to be at my current Junior High School assignment, sitting before Yamada-sensei, deciding how to put what I wanted to say to her. I learned a very valuable lesson from Ono-sensei. How shall I apply what I’d learned then now?
I wondered.
“Yes, what would you like to talk about, Baye-sensei?” Yamada-sensei asked, her smile trembling feebly on her face.
“Well…do you like to make lessons for our classes?” I asked, making sure my smile was intact.
She flinched and said, “Unnnn chotto…” (well, kinda, sorta…), which I’ve learned is as strong a ”no” as you’re gonna get sometimes in Japan. But I treated it like a half-hearted yes.
“Well,” I said, keeping upbeat. “I really like making lessons! I mean, I LOVE it! ”
“Hontou?” (really?) she asked a little suspiciously. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t? Haven’t you noticed I make all Tsuchiya-sensei’s and Morita-sensei’s lessons?”
“I did notice that,” she said, her smile slightly brighter, perhaps anticipating where I was going with this conversation.
“…And the students really seem to enjoy them. At least, I think they do.”
“Yes, I heard from both of them that the children really like your lessons,” she said, rising from her crypt of illness and despair and looking almost as giddy as a schoolgirl.
“Well, here’s what I wanted to say: You often seem very busy. Sometimes I worry that you are working too hard,” I said with great gravity, laying it on a little thick, wondering if I should pull back. “I mean…I know you enjoy making lessons, but can I please make a few for you?”
“Well, I…” she began, about to no doubt humbly accept, but I cut her off…
“You don’t have to decide now,” I said, waving her off like I had been expecting a negative response. “Just let me do it for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, on a probationary basis, you know? And if you don’t feel like the students are benefiting or enjoying the change, we can return to your wonderful lessons. How about it…will you give me a chance?”
She stared at me in wonder for a second, and I thought maybe I had overdone it. But most of the Japanese I know have no irony or sarcasm radar when it comes to English.
“I think that’s a great idea!” she said.
“Yatta!” (I did it!) I cried out, trying to restrain the great urge I felt to tell her, ‘If you had said or even hinted, even subtly, that you wanted me to make lessons, we would have been where we are now months ago…without the involvement of the Board of Education or my company!’ But I bit my tongue, as the BOE lady sagely advised, and as I knew I should from my experience with Ono-sensei at the high school. “That’s wonderful! I’m glad we had this talk. So…what’s next week’s grammar point?”
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