The worst thing about the first week back at work after a long vacation is remembering how to do your job.

Although I’ve been working on Sundays and the occasional Saturday over the summer holiday; and even though the company I work for requires me to do busy work because, well, because, it takes some time for me to get my teaching legs back once I’m in front of students after a break.

Even figuring out where I’m supposed to be is a chore.

I’m constantly checking my schedule and double checking which room I’m supposed to be in. Despite that, I still check the schedule posted next to the door of each room to make sure I’m entering the correct room.

Granted, I get a kind of warm up, at least with junior high school, as we are checking speech contest speeches. This requires very little prep on my part and very little classroom management. My only job is to keep my eyes focused and to stay awake.

It helps when you’ve had a pretty good week and, despite having my eyes go bleary and numb, I had a good week. Next week is another day, though, so to speak.

As first dates go, it wasn’t so bad, mostly because it didn’t last that long. It’s amazing what a little humidity and hunger can do.

The start of autumn term at the school where I work has a number of traditions, at least with my classes. Junior high school students have have had the entire summer “vacation” (just under two months) to write a relatively short speech for the annual speech contest. Each grade has a different topic and each assignment sheet is filled with examples and Japanese explanations.

In theory, they will have this ready to be checked on the first day back.

In reality, around half have not finished the writing and several have lost their assignment sheets.

On the first day back, though, I’m relatively kind and let students finish their speeches. I even offer a new assignment sheet. This is especially true  with first year junior high school students as we’ve just shifted students around and many of them don’t know me.

On the second day, though, I stop being kind. and anyone who hasn’t finished has to join me at lunch for as many days as it takes them to finish their speeches.

In preparation for this, whenever it’s possible, I have lunch before class.

Today, one of my students didn’t finish in time and, much to his surprise, I told him to follow me. I took him to a desk just outside the large window of the jhs 1 teachers’ office. Imagine the guard observation post in a prison and then imagine a desk right in front of that and you’ll understand the scene.

His homeroom teacher saw him and came out to see what was going on. This trip was accompanied by many heavy sighs. Also keep in mind that every jhs 1 student can also see my student working.

Even worse, the desk is in a place with no air conditioning which, today, was an issue that almost made me rethink my diabolical plan.

After two months in which my student wrote only one sentence, it took him only ten minutes to finish the speech and another five for me to proofread it.

One down, only eight more classes to go.

For all the pens and paper I have around the house and as part of my everyday carry, I apparently never learned to take coherent notes. This meant that today I passed out the same worksheet I passed out last week.

Then the students caused me problems.

The students thought it was kind of funny when the got the same worksheet and some of them pointed out what I’d done and I responded with “Yeah, I know.” and then the lying/improvisational department kicked in and I said that I wanted to review it because I wanted them to discuss why the incorrect sentences were incorrect. “Explain the mistakes.”

This kept them busy for a while and then I moved on to the next assignment.

Then the students tried to sabotage me. Their homework was to do research on a game and bring the research to class where they would do some writing using the research. Instead they all wrote the paragraphs at home which meant they’d used translators, which meant their English was probably worse than what I was hoping they’d do in class.

The problem was I’d planned on the in-class writing assignment taking up a substantial portion of the afternoon. This meant I had a substantial portion of the afternoon to replan.

My attitude was “Don’t you sabotage me! I’m the only one who gets to sabotage me!”

The lying/improvisational department took over and I told them to change papers and read their partner’s papers out loud and then proofread the paragraphs. Then everyone had to rewrite their paragraphs based on the suggestions.

That filled up enough of the afternoon that it looked almost as if I’d planned it.

As a rule, especially with lower level classes, I’m nice for the first few classes until it’s time to not be nice.

I give homework and try a few difficult things, but mostly I’m setting my students up for when the heavy stuff comes in. Today the heavy stuff came in and I stopped being nice.

After a pretty good first half of a three hour class, I could see students wearing down in the second half as demands increased. Then I gave them a writing assignment and watched their eyes glaze over and their brains fry (note, this happened in rapid succession so that it seemed nearly simultaneous). Most of them sat paralyzed and did nothing, one was working on something else until I came by. Two giggling women have guaranteed themselves new partners next week.

Then one guy pulled out his cellphone and started doing, well, it doesn’t matter because they are not allowed to have cellphones out unless I give permission, and it’s even questionable then.

I asked him what he was doing and his response was one part denial grunt and one part “oh crap” grunt. That’s when I turned the volume up to nine.

I told him he should get out if he didn’t want to be there and that if I saw his phone again, even if it was next week, he’d be thrown out. He mumbled something that may have been “sorry” and then stared at his textbook as if using the force would make words appear.

This could make things interesting next week. As the plan includes the students proofreading each other’s paragraphs, anyone without a paragraph will be sent out to finish it or not come back. I’ve already got the “you’re wasting everyone’s time” speech prepared.

One of my new students has his doubts about me, and has expressed them to sales staff.

A complaint after one class is a record, even for me.

His complaint is that he can’t understand me very well. Of course, as I pointed out to the staff, if he could understand me very well, he wouldn’t need the class.

I suspect he won’t complete the course. He runs a small business and is not taking the course as the first step of going to school outside of Japan. If he’s taking it to improve his English, he’s probably in the wrong class as it’s a college prep class designed to help the students pass all necessary exams, not an English class to improve speaking.

He also doesn’t seem to be there to meet people, if you know what I mean, although it is reasonably target rich environment (of women and men) so to speak.

That said, once I explain stuff, he does the work, but I can tell he has his doubts.

If he sticks with the course, he’ll find himself getting used to my in class blather. Everyone has trouble early on, especially as all the teachers push their students to see how well they’ll do.

Until then, I’ll blather on.

Even after 27 years of teaching, in some form or another, I still get nervous before I meet a class for the first time.

It’s not a debilitating nervousness, and not even half as bad as the jitters I got before I acted in a play when I knew I needed to do something, but couldn’t decide between number one, number two or just puking.

Instead it’s more of a restlessness and periodic fits of self-doubt that manifests as a form of amnesia that causes me to forget everything I’ve learned since I’ve been teaching. I’m especially worried with a Japanese class because the Japanese tend to form permanent first impressions.

I was also warned that the class was fairly quiet and that I might have some trouble getting them to talk.

Once I got in front of the class, my improv skills took over and I started running a series of tests to see how they did.

Verdict: they are mixed levels, which is a pain, but most of them worked hard. The few who didn’t might be an issue eventually, but even they didn’t seem that bad.

I’ll find out more next class when they are supposed to turn in their first homework assignment. That’s when the real fun will start.

All of us were kind of dazed. I probably showed the effects more than they did, though. They are a lot younger and care a lot less.

Today was the first day back at my Sunday job after a fortnight’s worth of holidays. Seven out of ten students showed up and I was pleased 1) that I remembered the names of the seven who showed and 2) that I remembered to show up.

The students worked hard, even though they were distracted by a speech that was scheduled for after lunch. (They went through the motions, but their hearts were full of dread for what was going to happen after lunch.)

In my case, it took me an hour or so to get my teaching legs and teaching rhythm back. (It’s not like falling off a bicycle, it takes some warming up. Something like that.)

Eventually speech time came and student confidence evaporated. Although there have been attempts to debunk/update the 1973 Book of Lists survey that ranked public speaking well above death as the number one fear, I still maintain that people fear the public humiliation of a speech more than they fear dying.

Aside: More current surveys offer a choice: Which of these do you fear most “being set on fire and having your eyeballs explode” or “public speaking”? When simply asked what they fear, I’ll bet most people still rank “public speaking” pretty high. 

After the speeches, I gave them an early break and then let them choose the final topics. (Long story.) It was a pretty good day in the end, especially as I didn’t have to give a speech, only mark them.