Then there is Fumiko, who is about sixty and roughly half my height, with fat little fingers and huge tombstone teeth, which she flashes constantly in a giant smile that takes up nearly half her face. She paints all of her clothes herself with swirling floral designs or wispy animal figures with huge eyes, and she goes to visit her dog’s grave every Wednesday. Though she’s been coming to Lane for years, her English remains horrific. She’s at an intermediate level, which she arrived at solely because the teachers felt bad that she’d taken all the lessons in the beginner level about five times each.
I knew I loved this woman the first day I taught her. I was teaching a lesson about expressing obligation-e.g., “I have to go to the store” or “I somehow have to come up with five grand for my dealer before midnight or he’s gonna kill my cat”-and we were doing a listen-and-repeat exercise in which I make a statement that the students then turn into a “why” question, in order to practice those treacherous interrogative forms.
Turning to Fumiko, I prompted her with “He had to go visit his mother.” She replied, “Why did he have to go… bank?” So I repeated the sentence again, and she said, a bit thrown off and confused, “Why…bank?” I smiled benevolently, sage-like, and said, “Visit his mother,” while rolling my head to coax the correct answer out of her.
“Why did he have to go to…” she began, looking around at the other students nervously. (Come on, you’re almost there, oh my God, Fumiko-just say it, say it and save us all!) “Bank?” (Argh!)
Now there comes a time in a lesson when the teacher realizes that no amount of correction is going to help. Too much will make her nervous, distracted, and may embarrass her in front of her peers.
“You really want him to go to the bank, don’t you?” I smile, walking over to her and lovingly tapping her shoulder with my hand. “OK, let’s just send him there. He can visit his mother later.”
Right on cue, she said, “Why did he have to visit mother?” I want this woman to move in with me and paint all my clothes.
Over the past year of teaching, I’ve had to contend with the extreme shyness of Japanese students in an English conversation class. Forever concerned with maintaining equilibrium, they have an almost pathological aversion to speaking out of turn, disagreeing outright, or giving the wrong answer. It can make for a precarious environment for teaching English conversation since in order for my job to be performed with any degree of success, I need to get the students speaking without scaring them away.
To teach English as a foreigner in Japan, one must do daily battle with the complex and often frustrating elements of the national psyche that don’t exist in the American mind. For one thing, in the school system here, the classroom atmosphere is one of absolute deference to the teacher. Their word
It’s the exact opposite of the American school system, where children are encouraged to speak too much, the result being that we Americans never know when to shut up. Just look at our talk shows, our love of using cell phones while driving, our chatty reality shows, and our obsession with bumper stickers expounding our beliefs in God, political candidates, the genius of our honor students, the righteousness of guns, and living simply so that others may simply live. We Americans excel at giving too much information. The Japanese excel at not giving nearly enough. So the idea of a classroom where students are not only encouraged to speak out but required to do so leaves many of them confused and scared. And not just due to their fear of a foreign teacher. They are also dealing with their fellow Japanese, who will most certainly judge them. If they speak too enthusiastically or answer too many questions, they will be seen as arrogant and a show-off, a protruding nail in need of a good whack- down.
At first it didn’t bother me that it took a good fifteen to twenty minutes of my asking questions to a deadly silent classroom before they would relax and start talking. But when you deal with this lack of responsiveness day in day out, it starts to make you a little touchy. It’s not that they don’t want to talk. It’s that they don’t want to talk to
Things began promisingly. When I first looked at the attendance sheet before class started, I was surprised and thrilled to see the name Maria Gonzales listed among all the Yoko Omimuras and Naoki Moritas. After asking around, I’d learned that she comes from Mexico and is married to a Japanese man.
“Wow…Maria Gonzales,” I said to myself with a sigh, my brain racing with exotic and stereotypical images of forbidden dances, all-night fiestas, and tequila shots passed around the classroom. It had been so long since I’d considered a name like “Maria.” It sounded so zesty, vibrant, full of life. My classes could certainly use some color, some spice, some Marrrrrrrrrria.
The only time I’d had a Mexican in my class was a few months earlier. Boy was he a stud. His name was Diego Martinez, and he couldn’t speak much English, but it didn’t really matter because none of us were listening. He had the sex appeal of several South Pacific Islands. I think the word is “smoldering.” He’d made my classroom hot to the touch. For two hours we swooned, hanging on his every mispronounced and misused word. We didn’t get much done in that class, but we all definitely learned to love Mexico.
Now, what of this Maria? Would she enter the class wearing a tight red dress, her bronze skin glimmering like gold in the artificial light, her voluptuous curves and hoop earrings swaying from side to side as she sauntered to her desk and pulled out her bright red pen, spiral notebook, and maracas? Would she bring the other students out of their shells and show them that there’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all, “so just to speak the English and dance!” Would she?
No, she wouldn’t.
I walk into the class as usual, write my name on the board, and give a bubbly, if forced, hello. There’s no answer. I turn around, face the class, and give a somewhat more aggressive, even scary hello. The students look at each other nervously.
“Hello,” a few of them mumble.
I take attendance quietly, a chance to scope out our Mrs. Gonzales. She is a pretty conservative and serious- looking woman of about fifty. But I still cling to the hope that bubbling under her stern veneer is a Mexican madwoman who is ready to party.
“How’s everyone doing?” I ask.
No answer. From anyone. Not even Maria. I realize then that the next two hours are going to be absolutely excruciating. I’m going to have to pull every answer out of them like a dentist. An evil dentist with a big pair of bloody pliers.
I decide to target people for my answers.
“How are you, Akira?”
No answer. Only fear.
“Maria?” I venture.
“Ehhhh,” she stammers. “No…me…to speak…to…on top…take…the class.”
OK, so it turns out Maria speaks the absolute worst English I’ve ever heard in my life. There will be no one to save me, after all. I’ll drown in a sea of introversion.
But though my classroom is silent, I can hear the teacher in the next room loud and clear. It’s McD, the ex- marine tough guy with a head shaped like a cardboard box. He sounds like he’s speaking into a bullhorn.
“IN AMERICAN FAST-FOOD PLACES, YOU CAN MAKE ANY ORDER BIGGER FOR AN EXTRA, LIKE, THIRTY- FIVE CENTS! THAT MEANS YOU GET MORE FRENCH FRIES AND A BIGGER DRINK! YOU CAN’T DO THAT HERE! BUT YOU CAN DO IT IN AMERICA!!”
I want to bite off my hand and throw it at someone. I feel like I’m losing my mind. My class refuses to talk to me, and the only sound bouncing around the room is McD’s ode to American fast food.
“How are you, Akira?! Eiko?! Akiko?! How are you?!”
“AND IN AMERICA, YOU CAN FILL YOUR OWN DRINK! THEY HAVE FOUNTAIN DRINK STATIONS THAT THE CUSTOMERS CAN USE TO FILL AND REFILL THEIR DRINKS! IT’S REALLY CONVENIENT! BUT YOU CAN’T DO THAT