Slow To Gather Quick to Fade

Went I entered class, I had two and a half students.

I spent the better part of today down in Tokyo teaching students who hope to go to the USA to study. I’ve done this off and on for several years and I especially like the workshop days because 1) the are longer so there’s some extra money and 2) I don’t have to do any of the planning or prep work.

However, when I arrived in class, I knew I’d have to do some quick improvising. Two young women were awake while a third had her head down on the desk. She was fast asleep. As I got ready to wake her up (with the scariest sounding alarm on my phone) a fourth student came in. That didn’t help me much, but talking to him woke up the third young woman.

The problem is that the course is designed for 18 people. Giving 18 students their work, checking their work and then having them present their work would take a good part of the day. With only four students, I’d have to improvise a lot because they’d finish in almost no time.

Even the opening activity “Find Someone Who” would go quickly with only four students. I quickly wormed my way into a larger class for the warm up and by then a couple more students had arrived.

Over the course of morning, a few more students arrived. One arrived during a writing assignment and did nothing because that was easier than having me explain (once again) what he was supposed to do.

Two young women who arrived late immediately started acting bored. Their English was pretty good but I had to threaten to send them out a couple times for speaking Japanese and for talking when I was talking.

Over time, they faded to a level below boredom and I’m sure the last half hour was brutal for them. They even wanted to play games and were annoyed when I said no because the games wouldn’t help them pass their TOEIC or TOEFL.

This argument did not impress them.

At the end of the day, we were all ready to get out. I’ll see them again in a month. At least I’ll be in the building. I don’t know if I’ll see the same students. If I do, I hope they arrive on time and bring some energy.

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