ALTとしてどうすればいいのか？ ・ What should I do as an ALT?

最近、ALTの仕事に慣れたので、また「教育」という話題は頭に戻って来た。ある日、日本人の先生は文法を説明していた時、学生たちに向いて、学生のすることをよく見ていた。学生の立場から考えたら、「やっぱりこの授業はつまらないな」と思った。去年、こうして書いたけど、先生中心の授業はダメだと思う。授業中、ディスカッションを中心として授業を空想し始めた。

でも、昨日、中学の２年生と一緒に授業を行った。ゲームしたけど、中学生たちの態度は結構悪かった。ほとんどの学生たちは全然やる気がなかった。ゲームを無視して、隣の人と話したりしていた。ゲームはつまらないのかと思ったけど、ゲームが始まる前に、完全にやる気がない学生が多かったので、分からない。ゲームをやりたいのかとみんなに聞いたら、２人しか手をあげた。英語で聴いたら、質問を理解しなかった学生が多かった（「Do you want to play a game?」という質問はかなり簡単な質問にもかかわらず）と思ったけど、やりたくて英語のレベルが高い中学生はみんなに質問を説明した後、クラスの半分の学生は手をあげた。つまり、ゲームでもしたくないか、参加したくない学生が大かった。

今日の授業は昨日より良かった。朝だからあまり元気がなかったからのか分からないけど、ほとんどの学生は参加して、英語のゲームを楽しめた。ゲームに参加するより、宿題をしたか、漫画を読んだ学生もいたけど・・・

それは１つの件だったね。本当に、そんな学生と一緒にディスカッションができるのだろうか。

 もう一つは、給食時間の件だ。中学校の３年生と一緒に食べていた時、僕は日本語で話せることはばれたということを気づいた。なので、「日本語を話せますか？」と聞かれた時、「話せる」と答えた。その後、いろいろな質問をされた。その中の一つは「漢字を書けますか」と聞かれた。書ける証拠として、「愛」と「水曜日」を書いた。それで、ある男の子は漢字の試合したいと言って、彼と一緒に漢字の書き方を試合した。試合の途中、僕は「じゃあ、英語で書きましょう」と言って、彼と一緒に英語と漢字を書いた。

彼は毎日とても勉強をしたくない態度を見せるにもかかわらず、「明日もしようね」と言った。

まあ、今日、僕は彼のクラスと一緒に昼ご飯を食べたけど、彼は僕と話しかけなかった。恥ずかしかったかな？今日、台風は来るかのせいがあるので、いろいろな特別な程度を行われているので、あまり言語試合をする時間がなかった。明日、この学期の最後の日なので、あまり英語を考えたくないかもな。

とにかくそれは面白い経験だった。「本当に、日本語を話してはダメなのか」と考えていたけど、明日、やっぱり日本語で話したほうがいい場合があるんじゃないかと思った。

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Recently, I've gotten used to my job as an ALT, so I've restarted thinking about education. One day, while one of the English teachers was explaining some English grammar in class, I turned to the students and watch closely what they were doing. Thinking about the class from their perspective, the class was really boring. I wrote about it last year, but I think that teacher-centered classes are no good. In the middle of the class, I started daydreaming about a class centered on discussion.

But, yesterday, I had a class with the 8th graders. We played a game, but their attitude was really bad. Most of the students didn't want to participate. Most just ignored what was happening and were talking with each other. I thought that maybe the game was boring, but they had that attitude before we even started the game, so I'm not sure. When I asked everyone if they wanted to play the game, only about two students raised their hands. I thought that many of them didn't understand the question since I asked it in English, but even after a high-level student explained the question to them, only about half the students raised their hands. In other words, there were many students that either didn't even want to play a game, or they didn't want to participate.

Today's class was better than yesterday's. Maybe because it was morning so they weren't so energized yet, I don't know, but most of the students participated and enjoyed the game. There were some students that wanted to do homework or read manga more than play the game, though...

So that's one thing that happened recently. It really makes you wonder if it is possible to have a discussion with junior high school students.

Another thing that happened recently happened during lunchtime. While I was eating with the 9th graders, it looked like the students had realized that I can speak Japanese, so when one student asked me directly, I said yes. After that, they asked me some questions, one of them being, "Can you write kanji?" To show that I could, I wrote the kanji for "love" and "Wednesday" (even though the students practice the spelling of the days of the week, many still don't remember the spelling when they actually need to write it for some practical purpose, so that might have been why many people were surprised that I could write it). Inspired by my writing ability, one of the boys challenged me to a kanji-battle. In the middle of the battle, after we wrote something in Japanese, I said, "Okay, now in English!", and then we started to write everything in English and Japanese.

In spite of the fact that he never shows any desire to study English, he said, "Let's do it again tomorrow."

Well, I ate lunch with his class again, but he didn't ever talk to me. Today is a bit of an exceptional day. Tomorrow is the last day of school before summer break, so maybe he didn't really want to think about English?

Anyway, it was an interesting experience and showed me that there are times when it is good to speak Japanese with the students.