Listening Tests and Me
This week the students are taking tests. The English tests all consist of a listening component, and so my role as the local native speaker is to help make the listening tapes. Since my Japanese colleagues are busy during the day, it means staying late after school. Since last week was planning for the home stay exchange, and the week before was helping the students get ready for High School entrance exams, this is the 3rd week in a row I’ve been asked to stay late at school.

Not that I mind all that much. My social calendar is pretty free actually, and besides as the Assistant English Teacher I’m pretty spoiled anyway. Most days I leave at 4:30 whilst my Japanese co-workers stay at school until 8 or 9.

But what is somewhat frustrating is the fact that I have nothing to do all day while the students are taking their tests. So I sit in my desk all day studying Japanese or reading a paperback and watching the clock slowly tick by, and then when I’m supposed to go home I have to stay late after school to make the listening tapes. I know that it is just the way the scheduling works out, but it really seems like a waste

Yesterday I was at school till 7 PM making a tape, and then shortly after I left, I got a call saying they needed me to come back to school. It appears that when we made the tape, we had used the word “walk” in one of the sentences, but the 7th grade students haven’t learned that word yet, so we had to redo it and change the word to “run.” I thought this was somewhat ironic.

“So the students have learned ‘run’ but they haven’t learned ‘walk’?” I asked. My Japanese co-teacher nodded. “That’s funny. In English we have a saying, ‘You have to learn to walk before you can run’.”

Getting no reaction, I explained further, “But these students have learned run, but not walk.”

“That’s because the word ‘walk’ is very hard for the students to pronounce.”

“Yes, but I just think it’s funny because…Oh, never mind.” I spend my days making a lot of bad jokes like this, but sometimes humor doesn’t translate across cultures very well.