A Few From the Back Wall - Part II

Why are Japanese students so shy?

Earlier this year, Megumi Sensei took two weeks off to go to France on her honeymoon. In an effort not to burden any of her Japanese colleagues with teaching more classes, she of course asked me to substitute all her classes. And I did. Being in a classroom is much more fun than sitting blankly at a desk, surfing the internet, or memorizing Japanese kanji. Also, I really like being in the classroom without a JTE. I don’t have to worry so much about ‘being professional’ and I can go a little off the main drag. I have brought balloons, giant dice, a football, and a penguin costume, (that was a fun class) among other things, to the classroom. Also, the students are forced to use English because there is no JTE safety net waiting to translate what I say. And I can be very patient waiting for an answer. Unfortunately, there are a few classes that are just so astoundingly, extraordinarily, handi-cappingly shy, that they say absolutely nothing. They do not laugh at jokes. They do not speak, even when directly spoken to. They never respond to English instructions, and they only respond to Japanese instructions on average the fifth time. But, they will write everything that I have written on the blackboard and everything that they can understand me say. They really are the stereotypically shy, smart, studious kid. And I know it’s not entirely my fault because I generally will have success using the same formula with a different class.
One of Megumi Sensei’s classes is in fact one such class. Yes, ladies and gentleman, homeroom 2-4 is what one would call a ‘tough crowd.’ I heard that the previous ALT actually pulled a rabbit out of a hat with real magic and got no reaction. Frustrated, he fabricated a gun and shot it. The girl in the front row calmly wiped the rabbit blood off her face before taking notes on the occurrence that had just occurred. I can’t prove that’s true, however. She won’t let me see her notebook.
I dove into the worksheet that Megumi Sensei had prepared. It was a pronunciation worksheet. For example, is the ‘a’ in ‘apple’ the same as the ‘a’ in ‘alcohol’ or ‘abuse’? But first, we started with word stress practice. The instructions were written in Japanese, so I had to translate it myself. Goodness knows this class wouldn’t do it for me because that would probably involve one of them having to speak alone. There were four words to each question, and one of the words would not have the same pronunciation stress as the others. For example…

1. performance 2. enhancing 3. narcotic 4. rocket 1

Now, of course, this was not a real example from the worksheet but simply words plucked completely at random from the dictionary, or an ESPN article about Roger Clemens. You can see that answer choice 4 is the correct one. Choices 1, 2, and 3 are all stressed on their second syllables, while 4 leads with the stress. One loose end I had unfortunately not tied up before class had started was the number aloofly hanging out over to the right. In the example above, it is the number 1. And each example had a number over there, from 1 to 4, with 4 being very rare. I mused to myself ‘what could it be?’ but concluded that it didn’t matter. I had read the instructions, in Japanese, and not found any mention of this right-tending number. Oh well. Time to start the sheet in earnest with the students.
The first few examples went along swimmingly. The students said nothing and wrote a lot without even looking up. I assumed they were learning. Then, an unexpected snag hit. I couldn’t find a correct answer to question 4. Example:

1. japanese 2. language 3. illiterate 4. flounders 2

Ok, let’s stress this out. jap / a / NESE, 3. LANG / uage, 1. ill / LIT / er / ate, 2. FLOUN / ders, 1. So, which number, amongst 1,1,2, and 3, is not like the others? Well, that’s a tough one, isn’t it. So, I did what any American would do when confronted with a question about his language that he can’t answer. I blamed the British. ‘Well kids. What we have here is a classic example of differences between American English and British English. So…let’s see… Got it. The British say JAPanese instead of japaNESE. That means ‘illiterate’ is the answer. This must be an English textbook from Britain.’ It wasn’t. But, I had an answer sheet which confirmed that the correct answer was indeed ‘illiterate,’ so I confidently trampled on, still quite oblivious to that little number on the right that was just hanging out. Unfortunately, I kept running into words that ‘British people pronounced differently.’ Some were quite shocking to me, really. Who knew that British people say rulER instead of RUler? Or herOine instead of HERoine? I was beginning to wonder how I ever understood anything a British person said! To get an answer that matched the answer key, I had to make some extraordinary gashes in the English language, all while bullshitting my way to an answer. And the kids just kept on writing whatever I said. They drew my chart, which separated English words like MOtorcycle (American English) and motorCYcle (apparently British English). They drew my map of the United States, where I drew a line between the North and the South and wrote the word DInosaur in the northern half and the word dinoSAUR in the southern half. And I was on a roll, writing bullshit faster than I could think it, and the kids kept up with me the whole time, silently and unknowingly perpetuating enormous lies, while simultaneously reinforcing the need for more English competency tests for JET applicants.
Of course, as soon as the ending bell snapped the feverish and preposterous mindset I was in, I realized the craziness of what I had just done. I mean, I was a step from telling these kids that you say HElicopter in the Spring and Summer if its flying, heLIcopter if it isn’t, heliCOPter at all other times, and helicopTER in the very special case that the word preceding it is a gerund, with no regard for season or semi-annual precipitation averages.
As you probably have already realized, the number hanging out to the right is essentially the entire question. A number 2 signifies that the student should look for a word with second syllable stress. It has nothing to do with comparing the answer choices to one other. That’s why example 1, from above, and the first three questions yielded answers in step with the answer sheet. The wrong answer choices all coincidentally had the same syllable accent, which of course can not match the number to the right. My troubles came when I had to force three words with very different syllable stressings to all have the same stress so that there could be one unique, ‘correct’ answer.
Yes, I was blinded by arrogance thinking it impossible that I translated the directions incorrectly. Yes, I still don’t know where I got some of my intellectual leaps from (who would ever say motorCYcle?). Yes, I should not have continually tried to fit a square block into a circular hole. Yes, I should not have relied on an answer sheet when I knew, with almost certain certainty, that it was leading me astray. I definitely learned a lot that day. Unfortunately, I don’t think the students did. And I’m not talking about their English. I realized later, and Megumi Sensei confirmed it, that this class has been doing a sheet like this every week for the entire year, and probably the year before when they were freshmen. Plus, the instructions were in Japanese. They knew the instructions, and knew that what I was doing was entirely wrong. But no one said anything at all for 50 minutes. They just sat there, silently, watching me waste 50 minutes of their lives. And what’s more, they copied it all down. When Megumi Sensei asked them about it in the next class, they were speechless. Shocking.