Today, anything that could go wrong didn’t, but something did. Kind of.

At the school where I work I am in charge, sort of, of the foreign teacher part of High School English Club (there’s a Japanese teacher in charge of the entire club). In the past the club has alternated between “good” and “why the hell are you in English club?” (Answer: because I need the points for graduation–said in Japanese of course.)

This year, we’ve got an excellent group and we also have a new school full of fancy equipment, including laptops and computer projectors in each classroom and two Computer Assisted Learning Labs (CALL). Unfortunately, we also have an old school background and teachers are only slowly figuring out ways to use the equipment as more than distraction.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, a volunteer with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA aka the Japanese Peace Corps) in Tanzania got in touch with the  school and set up an international internet chat between our English club and Tanzanian students. Although this seems simple, it immediately became a big deal with everyone at school being invited as well as a representative from JICA in Japan.

This meant our boys had to be on their game; which meant they’d have to step up their game.

To get ready, a couple of my colleagues used their turns in club to help prepare the boys to ask questions and follow-up questions and to answer questions. Unfortunately, the first problem was the boys in the English club didn’t rise to the occasion and come up with clever questions. “Are you a food like?” is not an appropriate question. (Note: this was not an actual question. It is just an example of things to be avoided.)

Extra meetings were required.

Today at 4:00 p.m. japan time (10 a.m. Tanzania time?)  it was show time. Or, it would have been if there hadn’t been some Skype issues involving not being able to make a video connection. Luckily this only lasted 10 minutes or so and the connection was made. Every student got five minutes to chat with a counterpart in another part of the world. Our boys did a great job and one even proved he could break dance (on carpet no less). The Tanzanian students were a mix of boys and girls whose questions ranged from “What subject do you like?” to “How does Japan elect its Prime Minister?”

Everybody seemed to have a good enough time I suspect they will want to do it again. Well, at least everyone who’s not a boy in the club, Although they had a good time, they were really nervous.