Whew--
The first week of classes in the new school year is over--I survived! But ... I needed all Saturday and most of Sunday to recover my energy etc. They were OK, I think. Classes and students etc. I enjoyed meeting a bunch of new young people, really. I have three graduate school classes (PhD seminar, MA seminar, MA lecture) with small numbers of students (one, two, one respectively). Then I have five university classes: two Reading and Writing classes for commerce and pharmacy sophomores (32 and 25 students), one Interactive English class for architecture freshmen (27 students), and then two classes for English majors, one Conversation for freshmen (25 students) and one American Culture class for juniors and seniors (50 students). That means that I challenged learning the names and faces of nearly 150 students last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I could do it! But only during each class... After each class, I started forgetting most of their names and faces. I'm trying this time to review by going through the class lists before sleeping at night etc., but I can now after a few days only remember a few from each class, apart from remembering where they were generally sitting in the classrooms... So next week I'll have to take about ten minutes at the start of each class to memorize them again. **I used to make the students give me photo cards with their names on them so I could practice them at home, but I finally realized that it was a burden on them to do that, and I started accumulating too many cards that I'd never need again...** I noticed last year that it's kind of like living in an Islamic country except one that makes both men and women wear masks, so I have to really focus on their eyes and hair styles to try to remember them. Also their personalities. It's interesting how in almost every class there'll be one or two loners who sit by themselves, with the majority sitting by friends in pairs or trios or groups of four or so. I started each first class by getting them to practice calling me "JP," and then by taking 15 or so minutes to call roll, memorizing and reviewing them as I went. Then I went through the class description handouts with them, and finished class by asking them to ask me questions about anything. One funny guy asked me how much I get paid! A cute girl asked me to tell my love story with my wife. One interesting guy asked me if I knew how to write eggplant (茄子), because I'd said when another student asked me what Japanese food I like that I like any eggplant dish, and when I said no, I asked him to write it on the board, so I learned the kanji for eggplant... The best class for all that was I think the pharmacy one, because I'd managed to read and print their pre-class ("start-up class") writing about themselves, so as I went through the class list calling roll, I could refer to different things they'd written about themselves so as (I believed) to help me remember them better. It didn't really have that effect, but it was fun. Oh! And I had a great new family name I am sure I've never encountered in nearly 30 years teaching in Japan: Hebshima, which means Snake Island in English! Someone back in the Meiji era when all Japanese got family names (I think) had a neat imagination... ANYWAY, the new year is under way, so I can stop having school nightmares at night and just get back to working.
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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