Monday Teaching: Sakonyama

Here is the first of what I hope to be a complete set of writings on the Japanese English teaching experience.

On Mondays, I take the tole road north to Sakonyama, a relatively rural Yokohama suburb. Driving at high speeds, without the continuous stop-start-stop driving of the normal trafficked commute, is liberating and a very enjoyable experience in itself.

The Sakonyama Class is at Ueno Kindergarten. The building neighbors a large vegetable farm and the sweet scent of burning cedar or other vegetation is often in the air as I exit the car. I usually arrive as the students are getting let out, and am engulfed in a sea of loud giggles and bubbly smiles. I pass through, recite the afternoon prayers, quickly set up the classroom and begin.

The first class has four girls. They arrive early in their Ueno Kindergarten uniforms and wait for me to set up, laughing loudly at everything I say or do. This light mood, along with their short attention span, makes them very difficult to teach and their lessons are often exhausting. To keep them interested, I have to be constantly on the move; singing, playing games and aimlessly running around. If I am not creative enough and my acts go stale, I will lose their focus and the lesson will be in vain. Exerting effort to keep their attention and to inspire them to participate and understand has taught me a lot about the nature of children.

The class’ smallest student is a little doll named Reika. She wears a red hair band and bangs and purposefully makes her voice high and squeaky. Sometimes before class we play voice games together. I squeak three times, and she makes three squeaks. I make three higher and faster squeaks and she imitates, and so on.

After they leave, I have a five minute break. Then the third class’ three students enter. I greet them with “Hello, How are you?” and they respond, “I’m fine thank you and you.” When I first started two of them were quite mischievous, making witty comments and hiding in the cubby holes. To counter this and redirect their talents, I created a behavior modification system (adapted from that which I used at Windsor Academy). If they do good, they get a stamp, if they misbehave, a stamp gets X-ed out. At the end of the semester the winner gets a “big candy.” This has created a healthy competition and a lively atmosphere.

The third class has four well-motivated and intelligent students. The crown is a young boy named Ho-ota. Ho-ota is super interested and excited about learning English. He runs into the classroom, greets me with a loud “Hello” and often leaves with a jumping high five and loud laughter. He wears an array of interesting and character portraying t-shirts. One says, “Perfection: kid running at full speed” and another says “Beetle (collecting) Champion.” He is a pleasure to have in the classroom and I greatly admire his spirit.

The fourth class is the most precocious of the week. It consists of two best friends that understand what I teach so fast that sometimes it’s difficult to fill the 40 minutes of class time. They are so high, that it is difficult to see where to push them upward to. Such is a puzzle that I have yet to complete, but I will continue to put in effort and hope a creative solution will arise.

After they leave, I clean up and head to the car. This moment brings one of two distinct feelings: exhaustion or glory.


Exhaustion has come when I was not fully prepared, had too little sleep and/or did not teach to my full ability.

Glory comes with a soothing internal fire. This feeling means that I fought with all my heart and that everyone involved learned and grew.

Thank G-d, there has been much glory.