One of Those ALTs...

It didn't take long to understand how long ALTs are remembered in a small town. Maybe this isn't true of all schools/areas but in mine the ALT is usually the only exposure anyone has with people who aren't Japanese.

I especially think about this in relation to the students I interact with. I am very conscious about providing the students every opportunity to use English. And in the process I think I may have become one of those ALTs. The ALT that knows nothing about Japanese culture, refuses to use Japanese, and in general doesn't try to embrace her life here but rather tries to transplant her American life. Now obviously that's a bit of an exaggeration but I worry about how little of an exaggeration it is.

There's this worn out (though I'm sure sincere) storyline about ALTs who refuse to use Japanese with their students until one day they decide to give it a shot and find that their students ease up because they see their ALT messing up too and there's this moment of solidarity and the students and ALT form a wonderful bond that carries them through boring worksheets and exhausting exams.

As nice as this story is it will never be mine. No matter how much my Japanese improves (it can only go up from here) I will never use it in the classroom and rarely outside of it. The role I've fashioned for myself is as a communication coach. I'm their dummy; they can test out their expressions and explanations on me.

This approach is sometimes not so successful and it puts me in a position to be overlooked by the less motivated students. I realize this and it's unfortunate; I wish I could encourage all 500 students to study English but that's chotto muri (a little impossible). What I can encourage are students who will give it a try, who will bravely raise their hands and direct their question at me instead of the Japanese teacher.

This bravery has led to impromptu versions of pictionary, charades, and 20 Questions as we struggle to understand each other. Their creativity always astounds me. One student drew a timeline on his worksheet with the words "present" and "future" written on it. Pointing to the blank dot he asked, "How do you say this English?" And he learned the word for "past" that day.

As I was walking back from a class not too long where two students pulled off the pantomime for "graduate" I was smiling to myself, feeling pretty good about my method. At my desk, though, I began to think about all the students who would never try such a stunt, who might want to talk to me but are afraid that I won't understand if they need to use some Japanese. Maybe my method was a bit selfish, making them do all the work as I sit in my English bubble? Maybe I really was one of those ALTs, one who's just too scary to talk to.

However, I recently had a speaking test that confirmed that though my method is not without flaws, it can produce amazing results.

One of students went from a score of little over 50% on her last test to almost 100% on this one. Her name is Miho. She likes to draw cherry blossoms on everything. One day in class we were playing BINGO. Instead of X's she was drawing cherry blossoms in the boxes.

I pointed at the drawing and said, "Cute!" She replied with, "sakura," the Japanese word for "cherry blossom." And I said "cherry blossom." Her eyes got big and she repeated the words a couple times, giggling after each time (foreign languages are funny and I think it would be easier for adults to learn them if we felt more freedom to laugh at the silliness of foreign sounds).

And that was Miho's turnaround. No longer the sweet but apathetic student she participates in class and talks with me after class. During lunch couple days ago she came up with this description for a famous Japanese drag queen: "A large hair woman gentleman." Grammatically correct? Not entirely, no. But it is effective, isn't it?

That's what I envisioned when I began to formulate my role as a communication coach. There are a few things you to effectively communicate in another language and here's the top two: creativity and opportunity. By always using English I am providing the opportunity that they wouldn't have otherwise; though the Japanese teachers know English there's not much motivation to speak with them in English since it'd be so much easier to speak in Japanese. And the creativity, that's all them.

So maybe for some of the students I will be remembered with a little resentment as one of those ALTs. But it's things like the "graduate" pantomime and Miho's test scores that strengthen my resolve to use English, to provide the opportunity to use English for communication outside of the set textbook sentences. Different styles work for different ALTs and different schools; I am well aware that being an English test dummy won't work for everyone or even for most people. But being one of those ALTs is working for this ALT. At least for now.